rl. She's a strange girl. I don't trust her. She
believes in myths. Oh, yes, I know. She did not say so, but I can
smell out an enemy. She will try to wreck everything. So it is in
life. We give everything--sacrifice everything--to pass on our
knowledge, our experience, and in the end they break away from us--they
go their own road."

Robert could not hear Christine's answer. He felt that Ricardo had
thrown out his arms in one of his wild gestures. "Not gratitude--not
gratitude. He was to have carried on my fight. To have been free as I
am not----"

Miss Edwards and Rufus Cosgrave came racketing back up the steep and
creaking stairs. It was like the whirlwind entry of some boisterous
comet dragging at its rear a bewildered, happy tail. They were as
exultant as though their paper bags contained priceless loot rescued
from overwhelming forces.

"Hurry up there, Mr. Stonehouse. Don't keep the lady waiting. Tea and
puff, as ordered, ma'am. No, ma'am, no tipping allowed in this
establishment. But anything left under the plate will be sent to the
Society for the Cure of the Grouch among Superior Waiters."

She jollied Christine, whose answering smile was like a little puzzled
ghost. She nourished a heavily scented handkerchief in the
professional manner and grinned at Robert, whose open hostility did not
so much as ruffle the fringe of her good humour. In her raffish,
rakish world poverty and wry, eccentric-tempered people abounded, and
were just part of an enormous joke. And Rufus Cosgrave, who gaped at
her in wonder and admiration, saw that she was right. Poor old Robert
and exams, and beastly, bullying fathers and hard-upness--the latter
more especially--were all supremely funny.

But Robert would not look at the jam-puff which she pushed across to
him.

"Thanks. I hate the beastly stuff."

And yet it was a flaky thing, oozing, as Rufus had declared, with real
raspberry jam. And he was very young. But he would not give way.
Could not. It seemed trivial, and yet it was vital, too. There was
something in him which stood up straight and unbendable. Once broken
it could never be set up again. And gradually a sense of loneliness
crept over him. He went and stood next Ricardo, who, like himself,
would have no share in the festivity. And the old man blinked up at
him with a kind of triumph.

"And we're going to a hill that I know of," Francey was saying. "No
one else knows of it. In fac