t he behaved himself and played with
the children, both Ruth's couple and little Jim; he was a huge success.
He ousted the grandfather--so much more vivid were his tales, so much
more amusing the things he could do with a penknife and a bit of wood.
Whistles, whips, boats, all seemed to grow under his gnarled old hands,
with their discoloured and broken nails, as though without effort. And
watching his success, knowing by some instinct he would not have told
for fear of misconstruction to any but Judy, who always understood, that
some malign wish to hurt lay at the springs of his brother's
complaisance towards the children, Ishmael felt a stirring of the old
unease that he admitted to himself was not without a leaven of jealousy.

For the Easter recess Nicky came down, and no lover ever waited for his
mistress with a more high-beating heart than Ishmael did for his son.
And at the back of his mind was the haunting fear of Archelaus as
affecting his relations with Nicky, a fear such as he might have had had
Nicky been a woman and he and Archelaus young men.

Nicky came, charming as ever. He was so full of life that his forty-odd
years seemed nothing to him. He had that immense vitality, sparkling but
full of reserved strength, that brings with it a sense of completeness
apart from youth or age. Ishmael felt the old pang of disappointment
that Nicky gave so little, repented of directly some little thing showed
how Nicky was thinking of and for him. Nicky drew his brows together
when he heard of his uncle's advent. He was a great stickler for the
conventions, and did not like this appearance in the flesh of old family
scandals that might again become a topic for busy tongues.

Archelaus was out when Nicky arrived, but when the family party was
assembled on the lawn for tea he made his appearance. Everyone was
there. Ruth had driven over from her Vicarage with her two little girls,
with whom Jim was playing and occasionally quarrelling; Marjorie sat by
Nicky and waited on him with an indulgence she generally showed him on
the first day together after they had been separated for a few weeks;
and even the volatile Lissa was there, in a sense, as Ruth had had a
long letter from her that morning which she had brought over to read to
her father. Ruth's husband, a gentle, kindly, abstracted creature, was
there too, pulling his long fingers through his beard and saying very
little. Ishmael liked him, but preferred him to come to