of mortality surrounding them, her children had
learned that they must be kind because the old people would be gone
while they endured and remained.

This Saturday being the last of the season, they had all come; not only
the Flemings, but the Jervises and Verekers and Norrises, and Uncle
Bartie. The fine weather alone would have brought them.

Bartie, more morose and irritable than ever, sat under the tree of
Heaven and watched the triumphal progress of the Day. He scowled darkly
and sourly at each group in turn; at the young men in white flannels
playing tennis; at Mr. and Mr. Jervis and the Verekers and Norrises; at
the Flemings, old Mrs. Fleming, and Louie and Emmeline and Edith, and
the disgraceful Maurice, all five of them useless pensioners on his
brother's bounty; Maurice a thing of battered, sodden flesh hanging
loose on brittle bone, a rickety prop for the irreproachable summer
suit bought with Anthony's money. He scowled at the tables covered with
fine white linen, and at the costly silver and old china, at the
sandwiches and cakes and ices, and the piled-up fruits and the claret
cup and champagne cup glowing and shining in the tall glass jugs, and at
the pretty maidservants going to and fro in their accomplished service.

Bartie wondered how on earth Anthony managed it. His wonder was a savage
joy to Bartie.

Mr. Jervis, a heavy, pessimistic man, wondered how they managed it, and
Mr. Jervis's wonder had its own voluptuous quality. Mr. Vereker and Mr.
Norris, who held that a strike was a downright serious matter, also
wondered. But they were sustained by their immense belief in Mr.
Anthony. Mr. Anthony knew what he was doing; he always had known. A
strike might be serious while it lasted, but it didn't last. And Mr.
Nicholas was in the business now, and Mr. John was coming into it next
year, and Mr. Nicholas might be married again by that time; and the
chances were that the firm of Harrison and Harrison would last long
enough to provide for a young Vereker and a still younger Norris.

In spite of the strike, Mr. and Mrs. Vereker and Mr. and Mrs. Norris,
like Frances and Anthony, were extraordinarily cheerful that afternoon.

So were young George Vereker and Miss Lathom.

"I can't think why I feel so happy," said Mrs. Vereker to Mrs. Norris.
She was looking at her son George.

"Nor I, either," said Miss Lathom, who was trying suddenly to look at
nothing in particular.

Miss Lathom lied and Mrs. Verek