to do?"

"Work, I suppose. 'Turbulence' is nearly finished, and I'm itching to
get on with a new story I've thought of. I'm calling it 'The Wayward
Man.' ..."

"We might go into the country...."

"Or hire a furnished flat for a while...."

"Or do something.... Lordy God, Quinny, we're getting frightfully vague
and loose-endy. We really must pull ourselves together. There's a
bun-shop somewhere about. Suppose we have tea?"

10

They took a furnished flat in Buckingham Street, and lived there while
Henry completed "Turbulence" and saw it through the press. Gilbert had
finished another comedy soon after the production of "The Magic
Casement," and Sir Geoffrey Mundane had asked for a first option on it.
"The Magic Casement" was not a great popular success, but it "paid its
way," as Sir Geoffrey said. It was performed for a hundred and twenty
times in England, and for three weeks in America, where it failed
lamentably. "I never did think much of a republic!" Gilbert said when he
heard of the play's failure.

Roger and Rachel had settled in their house in Hampstead soon after
Gilbert and Henry had taken the furnished flat, and after a while, some
of the old routine of their lives, except that part of it represented by
Ninian, went on as before. Most of Ninian's leave was spent in quelling
his mother's alarms about his journey to South America. "It's a splendid
chance for me, mother!" he insisted. "It's jolly decent of old Hare to
give it to me!"

"But it's so far away, Ninian, dear, and if anything were to happen to
you!..."

"Nothing'll happen to me, mother ... nothing serious anyhow. Heaps of
chaps go off to places like that without turning a hair!"

"But I've only got you, Ninian!" Mrs. Graham objected.

"You've got Mary, too, and I shall come back to you!"

One evening, as they walked along the road that leads to Sidmouth, she
put her arm in his, and drew him near to her.

"Ninian, dear," she said very softly and hesitatingly as if she were
afraid to say all that was in her mind.

"Yes, mother!"

"Ninian, I sometimes wish ..."

Again she hesitated, and again he said, "Yes, mother?"

Her speech took another direction. "There have been Grahams at
Boveyhayne for four hundred years, dear, and there's only you left now."

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. "Well, mother!..."

"My dear, we can't let it go away from us. It's us, and we're it, and if
anything were to happen to you, and a stranger were