oys; but in relation to their
seniors, and particularly for old gentlemen, he thought that the
sharpest rod to cut the skin was the sole saving of them. Insensibility
to Satire, he likened to the hard-mouthed horse; which is doomed to the
worser thing in consequence. And consequently upon the lack of it, and
of training to appreciate it, he described his country's male venerables
as being distinguishable from annuitant spinsters only in presenting
themselves forked.

'He is unsuccessful and embittered, Victor said to Nesta. 'Colney will
find in the end, that he has lost his game and soured himself by never
making concessions. Here's this absurd Serial--it fails, of course;
and then he has to say, it's because he won't tickle his English, won't
enter into a "frowzy complicity" with their tastes.'

'But--I think of Skepsey honest creatures respect Mr. Durance, and he is
always ready to help them,' said Nesta.

'If he can patronize.'

'Does he patronize me, dada?'

'You are one of his exceptions. Marry a title and live in state--and
then hear him! I am successful, and the result of it is, that he won't
acknowledge wisdom in anything I say or do; he will hardly acknowledge
the success. It is "a dirty road to success," he says. So that, if
successful, I must have rolled myself in mire. I compelled him to
admit he was wrong about your being received at Moorsedge: a bit of a
triumph!'

Nesta's walks with her father were no loss of her to Nataly; the girl
came back to her bearing so fresh and so full a heart; and her father
was ever prouder of her: he presented new features of her in his
quotations of her sayings, thoughtful sayings. 'I declare she helps one
to think,' he said. 'It 's not precocity; it 's healthy inquiry. She
brings me nearer ideas of my own, not yet examined, than any one else
does. I say, what a wife for a man!'

'She takes my place beside you, dear, now I am not quite strong,' said
Nataly. 'You have not seen...?'

'Dudley Sowerby? He's at Cronidge, I believe. His elder brother's in a
bad way. Bad business, this looking to a death.'

Nataly eyes revealed a similar gulf.

Let it be cast on Society, then! A Society opposing Nature forces us
to these murderous looks upon impediments. But what of a Society in the
dance with Nature? Victor did not approve of that. He began, under the
influence of Nesta's companionship, to see the Goddess Nature there is
in a chastened nature. And this view shook the c