"Does Soames never trouble you?" he asked.

She shook her head. Her face had closed up suddenly. For all her

softness there was something irreconcilable about her. And a glimpse of

light on the inexorable nature of sex antipathies strayed into a brain

which, belonging to early Victorian civilisation--so much older than

this of his old age--had never thought about such primitive things.

"That's a comfort," he said. "You can see the Grand Stand to-day. Shall

we take a turn round?"

Through the flower and fruit garden, against whose high outer walls

peach trees and nectarines were trained to the sun, through the stables,

the vinery, the mushroom house, the asparagus beds, the rosery, the

summer-house, he conducted her--even into the kitchen garden to see the

tiny green peas which Holly loved to scoop out of their pods with

her finger, and lick up from the palm of her little brown hand. Many

delightful things he showed her, while Holly and the dog Balthasar

danced ahead, or came to them at intervals for attention. It was one of

the happiest afternoons he had ever spent, but it tired him and he was

glad to sit down in the music room and let her give him tea. A special

little friend of Holly's had come in--a fair child with short hair like

a boy's. And the two sported in the distance, under the stairs, on the

stairs, and up in the gallery. Old Jolyon begged for Chopin. She played

studies, mazurkas, waltzes, till the two children, creeping near, stood

at the foot of the piano their dark and golden heads bent forward,

listening. Old Jolyon watched.

"Let's see you dance, you two!"

Shyly, with a false start, they began. Bobbing and circling, earnest,

not very adroit, they went past and past his chair to the strains of

that waltz. He watched them and the face of her who was playing turned

smiling towards those little dancers thinking:

'Sweetest picture I've seen for ages.'

A voice said:

"Hollee! Mais enfin--qu'est-ce que tu fais la--danser, le dimanche!

Viens, donc!"

But the children came close to old Jolyon, knowing that he would save

them, and gazed into a face which was decidedly 'caught out.'

"Better the day, better the deed, Mam'zelle. It's all my doing. Trot

along, chicks, and have your tea."

And, when they were gone, followed by the dog Balthasar, who took every

meal, he looked at Irene with a twinkle and said:

"Well, there we are! Aren't they sweet? Have you any little ones among

your pupils?"

"Yes, three--two of them darlings."

"Pretty?"

"Lovely!"

Old Jolyon sighed; he had an insatiable appetite for the very young. "My

little sweet," he said, "is devoted to music; she'll be a musician some

day. You wouldn't give me your opinion of her playing, I suppose?"




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