f trial--an
uncontrollable emotion, but he would not let his mind speculate about
the grief and attitude of his family, forcibly interposing a veil
between himself and them. Tired out at length, he let his reverie
merge into mere uncritical perception. He was conscious of afternoon
sunshine, of a great stretch of sky, with a continent of white cloud
containing big blue lakes; his eye took in the expanse of sea,
glistening, streaked, patched, lined, and shaded, with the pier in his
centre of vision, a mass of kiosks, pole-lamps, and conventional
iron-work. And in the foreground parasols dotted here and there made
spots of black, brown, green, and red against the yellowish shingle.

Commonplace as the scene was, he found it restful to dwell upon in a
lazy fashion. He forgot for a while that Cleo was by his side, and
when he awoke again to the consciousness of her presence he found she
had been engaged in reading again the two favourable notices of her
performance, which she had carefully carried about with her.

Soon Alice and Mary appeared, and all four went home together. Tea was
laid in the same room, the table being set out as for a heavy meal.

"Did you enjoy your walk, sir?" asked Mr. Kettering, while the trim
servant, waiting at table with the same solemn gravity as before, put
before him a huge cup of very strong tea, of which no milk or sugar
could alleviate the astringency. He now found he was expected to eat
large quantities of boiled fish, plum-cake and sweets; and Mrs.
Kettering, perceiving that he didn't do justice to the fare,
enumerated to him other things that were in the larder, with the
suggestion that he might perhaps prefer a choice of them. Some of the
stiffness that had characterised the former meal had vanished--Morgan
could see now that had been due to shyness at his presence--and,
though Mark still showed little willingness to converse, the girls
were evidently beginning to find themselves again, occasional
gigglings heralding their return to normality. But the concentration
of the united attention of the family for Morgan's benefit was
somewhat disconcerting. The girls vied with each other in pressing
plum-cake upon him, and seemed to view his refusal as a personal
rebuff. He did not understand just then that each considered a bit of
her own niceness went into the cake when held towards him with her own
hand, and that it was this niceness he was rejecting. As for the cake,
they took it for gr