d they had been lying in the
Covered Market, of all places in the universe... Blind! How blind he
had been to the possibilities of existence! Laden with a bag of apples
in one hand and a heavy parcel of books in the other, he had had to go
up to dinner in the car. It was no matter; he possessed riches. The
car stopped specially for him at the portals of the new house. He had
introduced the books into the new house surreptitiously, because he was
in fear, despite his acute joy. He had pushed the parcel under the bed.
After tea, he had passed half an hour in gazing at the volumes, as at
precious contraband. Then he had ranged them on the shelf, and had
gazed at them for perhaps another quarter of an hour. And now his
father, with the infallible nose of fathers for that which is no concern
of theirs, had lighted upon them and was peering into them, and
fingering them with his careless, brutal hands,--hands that could not
differentiate between a ready reckoner and a treasure. As the light
failed, he brought one of them and then another to the window.

"Um!" he muttered. "Voltaire!"

"Um! Byron!"

And: "How much did they ask ye for these?"

"Fifteen shillings," said Edwin, in a low voice.

"Here! Take it!" said his father, relinquishing a volume to him. He
spoke in a queer, hard voice; and instantly left the room. Edwin
followed him shortly, and assisted Maggie to hang pictures in that
wilderness, the drawing-room. Supper was eaten in silence; and Maggie
looked askance from her father to her brother, both of whom had a
strained demeanour.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

THE INSULT.

The cold bath, the early excursion into the oblong of meadow that was
beginning to be a garden, the brisk stimulating walk down Trafalgar Road
to business,--all these novel experiences, which for a year Edwin had
been anticipating with joyous eagerness as bliss final and sure, had
lost their savour on the following morning. He had been ingenuous
enough to believe that he would be happy in the new house--that the new
house somehow meant the rebirth of himself and his family. Strange
delusion! The bath-splashings and the other things gave him no
pleasure, because he was saying to himself all the time, "There's going
to be a row this morning. There's going to be a regular shindy this
morning!" Yet he was accustomed to his father's scenes... Not a word
at breakfast, for which indeed Darius was very late. But a thic