have liked to go? No lies had been told to Robin, but
some of the information he had sought had been withheld. Dion had made
skilful use of Mr. Thrush when matters had become difficult, when Robin
had nearly driven him into a corner. The ex-chemist, though seldom seen,
loomed large in Robin's world, on account of his impressive coloring and
ancient respectabilities. Robin regarded him with awful admiration, and
looked forward to growing like him in some far distant future. Dion had
frequently ridden off from difficult questions on Mr. Thrush. Even in
the final interview between father and son Mr. Thrush had been much
discussed.

The final interview had taken place in the nursery among Aunt Beattie's
bricks, by which Robin was still obsessed. Dion had sat on the floor and
built towers with his boy, and had wondered, as he handled the bricks
in the shining of the nursery fire, whether he would come back to help
Robin with his building later on. He was going out to build, for England
and for himself, perhaps for Robin and Rosamund, too. Would he be
allowed to see the fruits of his labors?

The towers of bricks had grown high, and with it Dion had built up
another tower, unknown to Robin, a tower of hopes for the child. So much
ardor in so tiny a frame! It was a revelation of the wonder of
life. What a marvel to have helped to create that life and what a
responsibility. And he was going away to destroy life, if possible.
The grotesqueness of war had come upon him then, as he had built up the
tower with Robin. And he had longed for a released world in which his
boy might be allowed to walk as a man. The simplicity of Robin, his
complete trustfulness, his eager appreciation of human nature, his
constant reaching out after kindness without fear of being denied,
seemed to imply a world other than the world which must keep on letting
blood in order to get along. Robin, and all the other Robins, female
and male, revealed war in its true light. Terrible children whose
unconscious comment on life bites deep like an acid! Terrible Robin in
that last hour with the bricks!

When the tower had become a marvel such as had been seen in no nursery
before, Dion had suggested letting it be. Another brick and it must
surely fall. The moment was at hand when he must see the last of Robin.
He had had a furtive but strong desire to see the tower he and his
son had built still standing slenderly erect when he went out of the
nursery. Just th