enly he was conscious that his
hand was wet. His heart gave a little painful jump. He couldn't bear her
to cry. He put his other hand quickly over hers, and a tear dropped on
that, too. He couldn't go on like this! "Well, well," he said, "I'll
think it over, and do what I can. Come, come!" If she must have it for
her happiness--she must; he couldn't refuse to help her. And lest she
should begin to thank him he got out of his chair and went up to the
piano-player--making that noise! It ran down, as he reached it, with
a faint buzz. That musical box of his nursery days: "The Harmonious
Blacksmith," "Glorious Port"--the thing had always made him miserable
when his mother set it going on Sunday afternoons. Here it was
again--the same thing, only larger, more expensive, and now it played
"The Wild, Wild Women," and "The Policeman's Holiday," and he was no
longer in black velvet with a sky blue collar. 'Profond's right,' he
thought, 'there's nothing in it! We're all progressing to the grave!'
And with that surprising mental comment he walked out.

He did not see Fleur again that night. But, at breakfast, her eyes
followed him about with an appeal he could not escape--not that he
intended to try. No! He had made up his mind to the nerve-racking
business. He would go to Robin Hill--to that house of memories. Pleasant
memory--the last! Of going down to keep that boy's father and Irene
apart by threatening divorce. He had often thought, since, that it had
clinched their union. And, now, he was going to clinch the union of that
boy with his girl. 'I don't know what I've done,' he thought, 'to have
such things thrust on me!' He went up by train and down by train, and
from the station walked by the long rising lane, still very much as he
remembered it over thirty years ago. Funny--so near London! Some one
evidently was holding on to the land there. This speculation soothed
him, moving between the high hedges slowly, so as not to get overheated,
though the day was chill enough. After all was said and done there was
something real about land, it didn't shift. Land, and good pictures! The
values might fluctuate a bit, but on the whole they were always going
up--worth holding on to, in a world where there was such a lot of
unreality, cheap building, changing fashions, such a "Here to-day and
gone to-morrow" spirit. The French were right, perhaps, with their
peasant proprietorship, though he had no opinion of the French. One's
bit of lan