y evidence of that!

"I should have thought art was more in your line!"

Nedda looked up at him; and he was touched by that look, so straight and
young.

"It's this. I don't believe Derek will be able to stay in England. When
you feel very strongly about things it must be awfully difficult to."

In bewilderment John answered:

"Why! I should have said this was the country of all others for
movements, and social work, and--and--cranks--" he paused.

"Yes; but those are all for curing the skin, and I suppose we're really
dying of heart disease, aren't we? Derek feels that, anyway, and, you
see, he's not a bit wise, not even patient--so I expect he'll have to
go. I mean to be ready, anyway."

And Nedda got up. "Only, if he does something rash, don't let them hurt
him, Uncle John, if you can help it."

John felt her soft fingers squeezing his almost desperately, as if her
emotions had for the moment got out of hand. And he was moved, though he
knew that the squeeze expressed feeling for his nephew, not for himself.
When she slid away out of the big room all friendliness seemed to go
out with her, and very soon after he himself slipped away to the
smoking-room. There he was alone, and, lighting a cigar, because he
still had on his long-tailed coat which did not go with that pipe he
would so much have preferred, he stepped out of the French window into
the warm, dark night. He walked slowly in his evening pumps up a thin
path between columbines and peonies, late tulips, forget-me-nots, and
pansies peering up in the dark with queer, monkey faces. He had a love
for flowers, rather starved for a long time past, and, strangely, liked
to see them, not in the set and orderly masses that should seemingly
have gone with his character, but in wilder beds, where one never knew
what flower was coming next. Once or twice he stopped and bent down,
ascertaining which kind it was, living its little life down there, then
passed on in that mood of stammering thought which besets men of middle
age who walk at night--a mood caught between memory of aspirations
spun and over, and vision of aspirations that refuse to take shape. Why
should they, any more--what was the use? And turning down another path
he came on something rather taller than himself, that glowed in the
darkness as though a great moon, or some white round body, had floated
to within a few feet of the earth. Approaching, he saw it for what it
was--a little magnolia-tree in