"DEAREST UNCLE JOLYON,--I can't bear to write anything that may

disappoint you, but I was too cowardly to tell you last night. I feel I

can't come down and give Holly any more lessons, now that June is coming

back. Some things go too deep to be forgotten. It has been such a joy to

see you and Holly. Perhaps I shall still see you sometimes when you

come up, though I'm sure it's not good for you; I can see you are tiring

yourself too much. I believe you ought to rest quite quietly all this

hot weather, and now you have your son and June coming back you will be

so happy. Thank you a million times for all your sweetness to me.

"Lovingly your IRENE."

So, there it was! Not good for him to have pleasure and what he chiefly

cared about; to try and put off feeling the inevitable end of all

things, the approach of death with its stealthy, rustling footsteps.

Not good for him! Not even she could see how she was his new lease of

interest in life, the incarnation of all the beauty he felt slipping

from him.

His tea grew cold, his cigar remained unlit; and up and down he paced,

torn between his dignity and his hold on life. Intolerable to be

squeezed out slowly, without a say of your own, to live on when your

will was in the hands of others bent on weighing you to the ground with

care and love. Intolerable! He would see what telling her the truth

would do--the truth that he wanted the sight of her more than just a

lingering on. He sat down at his old bureau and took a pen. But he could

not write. There was something revolting in having to plead like this;

plead that she should warm his eyes with her beauty. It was tantamount

to confessing dotage. He simply could not. And instead, he wrote:

"I had hoped that the memory of old sores would not be allowed to

stand in the way of what is a pleasure and a profit to me and my little

grand-daughter. But old men learn to forego their whims; they are

obliged to, even the whim to live must be foregone sooner or later; and

perhaps the sooner the better.

"My love to you,

"JOLYON FORSYTE."

'Bitter,' he thought, 'but I can't help it. I'm tired.' He sealed and

dropped it into the box for the evening post, and hearing it fall to the

bottom, thought: 'There goes all I've looked forward to!'

That evening after dinner which he scarcely touched, after his cigar

which he left half-smoked for it made him feel faint, he went very

slowly upstairs and stole into the night-nursery. He sat down on the

window-seat. A night-light was burning, and he could just see Holly's

face, with one hand underneath the cheek. An early cockchafer buzzed in

the Japanese paper with which they had filled the grate, and one of the

horses in the stable stamped restlessly. To sleep like that child! He

pressed apart two rungs of the venetian blind and looked out. The moon

was rising, blood-red. He had never seen so red a moon. The woods and

fields out there were dropping to sleep too, in the last glimmer of the

summer light. And beauty, like a spirit, walked. 'I've had a long life,'

he thought, 'the best of nearly everything. I'm an ungrateful chap; I've

seen a lot of beauty in my time. Poor young Bosinney said I had a sense

of beauty. There's a man in the moon to-night!' A moth went by, another,

another. 'Ladies in grey!' He closed his eyes. A feeling that he would

never open them again beset him; he let it grow, let himself sink; then,

with a shiver, dragged the lids up. There was something wrong with him,

no doubt, deeply wrong; he would have to have the doctor after all.

It didn't much matter now! Into that coppice the moon-light would have

crept; there would be shadows, and those shadows would be the only

things awake. No birds, beasts, flowers, insects; Just the shadows

--moving; 'Ladies in grey!' Over that log they would climb; would

whisper together. She and Bosinney! Funny thought! And the frogs and

little things would whisper too! How the clock ticked, in here! It was

all eerie--out there in the light of that red moon; in here with

the little steady night-light and, the ticking clock and the nurse's

dressing-gown hanging from the edge of the screen, tall, like a woman's

figure. 'Lady in grey!' And a very odd thought beset him: Did she exist?

Had she ever come at all? Or was she but the emanation of all the beauty

he had loved and must leave so soon? The violet-grey spirit with the

dark eyes and the crown of amber hair, who walks the dawn and the

moonlight, and at blue-bell time? What was she, who was she, did she

exist? He rose and stood a moment clutching the window-sill, to give

him a sense of reality again; then began tiptoeing towards the door. He

stopped at the foot of the bed; and Holly, as if conscious of his eyes

fixed on her, stirred, sighed, and curled up closer in defence. He

tiptoed on and passed out into the dark passage; reached his room,

undressed at once, and stood before a mirror in his night-shirt. What a

scarecrow--with temples fallen in, and thin legs! His eyes resisted his

own image, and a look of pride came on his face. All was in league

to pull him down, even his reflection in the glass, but he was not

down--yet! He got into bed, and lay a long time without sleeping,

trying to reach resignation, only too well aware that fretting and

disappointment were very bad for him.




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