Chapter X (2)

Bastian laughed again. "Firsts and Seconds!" he said. "I didn't take a degree at all. The smash had come before then, and I was tied up for life."

Wilbraham was rather taken aback. It looked as if confidences were coming, and he had the gentleman's dislike to receiving them unless they are given with full intention. "Don't tell me anything you'll be sorry for afterwards," he said, with another look at Bastian's glass.

"Oh, my dear fellow, I'm not drunk," said Bastian. "I drink a lot, and no doubt it has had a good deal to do with keeping me where I am; but I don't get drunk. I don't often meet anybody like you, who belongs to the world I used to inhabit. It's a relief sometimes to unburden oneself. Besides, there's Viola. Viola doesn't often get the chance of talking to a gentleman. I think you'll open your eyes when you see Viola. I haven't been able to raise myself out of the muck, but it hasn't touched her. She's the flower that has grown out of it."

Wilbraham still felt some discomfort. If it were true that Bastian never got drunk, he was none the less under the influence of drink now, or he wouldn't have talked about himself with quite that absence of control. He must have been referring to his wife when he had said that he had been tied up for life, and men don't talk to one another in that way about their wives on a first acquaintance when they are in full possession of themselves.

"I shouldn't let anything you told me go any further," Wilbraham said.

Bastian did not seem to have heard this. He was looking down with a frown of concentrated purpose. To unburden himself was evidently imperative on him for the moment, and he was collecting his faculties to that end.

"I don't want to give you a false impression," he said. "My wife was a woman in a thousand. Never did I have one moment's regret that I had married her. I think, if she'd lived, she might have made a man of me still. Perhaps it was a fluke--I don't want to make myself out better than I was, and I was a rotten young fool in those days--perhaps it was a fluke that she was what she was, because it was only her beauty that I fell in love with, and I hadn't the sense then to see what there was behind it. But what I do say is that my people ought to have seen. I'll never forgive them for that, and I'll never let Viola have anything to do with them. She doesn't even know their name, and----"

"I don't quite understand," said Wilbraham, as he seemed to be off on another gallop. "Why did your people object to your marrying?"

"Oh, well of course it was a fool's trick. I wasn't even of age, and she was a girl off the stage, but one of the sweetest, kindest girls that ever stepped. I only had her for a few years, but I tell you I'm in love with her memory still. She's been dead seventeen years and I miss her as much as ever. Life's nothing to me, though I'm not old yet; I buried it all in her grave."

It was curious, thought Wilbraham, that there should be a story here not dissimilar from the one that he had lived with for about the same length of time. But the girl whose father had made the same mistake as Harry's had not been shielded from its consequences as he had. She was hardly likely to have escaped the contamination of the rougher, harder world to which her father had descended. Wilbraham attributed Bastian's praise of his wife largely to the diffuse sentiment of the moment. He had not otherwise created the impression of a man living upon a life-long regret. His daughter, if she was the close companion of his poverty and the witness of his habits, could hardly be the rare and delicate flower that he painted her, though she was probably beautiful. At any rate it would be just as well to preserve Harry from contact with her. It would be an ironic stroke of fate if in this remote corner in which he had been brought up the glamour of the stage should obtrude itself once more.

"Is your daughter on the stage?" he asked outright, at this point in his reflections.

Bastian roused himself, and seemed to shake off completely his mood of hopeless regret. "God forbid!" he said. "I wouldn't have risked that, though if I had I believe she'd have come through it. You must see Viola. I don't know where she is now. She's like a sweet young creature of the woods--roams about in them all day. That'll tell you what she is--a London girl, who can throw London off her altogether when she gets away from it. She's less bound to it even than I am. Come up to-morrow, will you? I'll tell her to be in to tea. She sometimes takes it out with her. Can you come about half-past four?"

Wilbraham had been thinking rapidly. If this girl was in the habit of roaming the woods all day she might come across Harry, who was also in the habit of roaming the woods. All the ideas with which Wilbraham had lived for years past gathered themselves into the instinct to watch and guard. He must see this girl of Bastian's, and he must be prepared for what should come, so that he could deal with it without surprise and without hurry. Fortunately, he had not announced his intention of calling upon the artist that afternoon. He would say nothing about his visit at the Castle, but would announce one for the next day.

"Yes, I should like to come," he said, as he rose from his seat. "I must be getting back now."

About a third of the whisky remained in his glass. He stood looking at it, as Bastian expressed his pleasure in having seen him, and then drained it off before he left the room.

*CHAPTER XV*

*WILBRAHAM*

Harry and Viola were in the log cabin. They had varied their meeting-places. Best of them all they loved the secret pool, but that was only for very hot still weather. Rain was falling intermittently this afternoon, but every now and then the sun shone. The weather made little difference to their happiness, and the cabin, Harry's handiwork, provided them with a shelter when they needed it, which brought them also a grateful sense of seclusion and joint possession. The Rectory was empty; Sunday duty was performed by a visiting clergyman; nobody was in the least likely to disturb them in their retreat. Viola had got rid of her slight suspicion of Jane, which she had already confessed to Harry, with happy laughter. "She may not know it," she had said, "but of course she's in love with you, poor child! She couldn't help being, if she was only nine instead of thirteen. I was a little jealous of her being so much with you. But I love her for loving you, and of course I'm not jealous of anybody now."

The log cabin was roughly furnished. Not much more would have been required if it had really been the home of a pioneer. Harry and Viola had played with the idea of living together in such a cabin, with a new beautiful world to be tamed all around them, and this as the nest of their love and companionship. So he had played with the children, but Viola's presence had given their cabin a wonderful romantic charm which it had never had and which it would never lose. Her presence would illumine every place in which she might rest. Harry's old castle was still in shadow because she had not yet visited it.

It was the morning of the day upon which Wilbraham was to take tea with Bastian, and Viola was to be there to be exhibited to him. Harry had been concerned at hearing that he had already been to the cottage.

"He has said nothing about it at home," he said. "This morning at breakfast he did say that he had thought of going to see your father this afternoon, but that it looked like raining all day. What does it mean?"

"Nothing very dreadful," said Viola. "He and father seem to have got on very well together yesterday, but perhaps he wasn't quite sure enough of him to ask him to the Castle. Perhaps he wants to see what I'm like first."

Harry threw her a quick loving look. They were sitting together on a bench underneath the eaves of the hut. They might not have been taken for lovers by anyone who had seen them; their caresses were rarer than might have been expected, fathoms deep in love with one another as they were; but looks and smiles flashed between them like summer lightning, and scarcely the lightest word was spoken without emotion.

"When he sees you," Harry began; but she interrupted him. "Father doesn't want to go if he does ask us," she said. "And I couldn't go, Harry dear. I love you so much that I couldn't keep it back. I'm afraid I shan't be able to keep it back this afternoon from Mr. Wilbraham, if he says anything about you."

"I've asked myself sometimes," Harry said, thoughtfully, "whether it's right to keep it back. You're so much above everybody else in the world, Viola, that----"

Again she interrupted him. "Harry darling," she said, "I've thought about it too. There are lots of things that I know about in the world that you don't. I only want to forget them while I'm here with you; and I can't if other people know how much I love you, and that you love me. They wouldn't let us forget them."

"What sort of things, Viola dear? I'm not a child, though perhaps they have tried to keep me one for too long, at home. I'm going to take care of you, for all our lives. I ought to know as much as you do."

"I hope you never will, darling," she said, a little sadly. "I know that the things I have learnt haven't spoilt me, or else I shouldn't feel so happy as I do in your loving me. But other people might not believe that. We're very young, both of us. We love as deeply as people who are older love, and we know we shall go on loving each other all our lives. But others wouldn't believe that. They would try to part us. They would part us, as long as I stayed here; and there's such a little time left. Oh, let us be happy together while it lasts, and keep our lovely secret."

"Why should they try to part us, Viola? Who is there? My grandmother and my mother. If they only saw you!"

She smiled at him. "It wouldn't be enough," she said, "whatever I was. And they wouldn't look at me with your eyes. Perhaps nobody else would. What was it made you love me so much, Harry?"

He had told her a hundred times, and now told her again; and she told him that she had loved him the very first moment she had set eyes on him, riding up on his gallant horse with his dogs around him. "You were like a splendid young knight," she said. "No girl could have helped loving you. But I love you a thousand times more now than I did then, and I suppose I shall go on loving you more and more all my life."

It was like the old stories of his childhood, which had to be told over and over again, and were better every time they were told. But now it was not as it had been then, when no variation must be admitted in the telling. There was always something new--some little discovery that deepened the sense of perfection and wonderment, some answering thought that showed them to have been close to one another, even in the hours in which they were parted and were pasturing on their sweet memories of one another.

It was with a kind of solemnity of sweetness that Harry dwelt upon Viola's trust in him and his manhood. By a thousand little signs it had been made plain that she knew more of the world than he, but she put all that knowledge aside and looked up to him and submitted to him as if infinite wisdom and experience were his. And in truth he had grown greatly in mental stature since her love had come into his life to change it so completely. They must have remarked upon it at home if he had not taken such advantage of the freedom that was granted him and been so little at home at this time. His mother actually had told him that he was altered, after he had expressed himself with more than usual self-confidence when they had talked about the war over the dinner-table. She was always on the look-out for signs of something that might take him from her, and she feared the war and what might come of it with an unreasoning fear, considering the information at her command. Harry was thinking a great deal about the war now, which does not mean that there were any times at which he was not thinking about Viola. With the coming of love his sense of the deeper values of life had become strengthened. If he had felt himself borne along on a strong current that would carry him to whatever of action or duty or mere state of being that was laid down for him, then whatever happened to him was part of the whole, and nothing in his life would be dissociated from anything else. It was this sense of unity that lifted his fresh boy's adoration of a girl as young and as pure as himself into something bigger and more rooted than that, beautiful as it is. His love gave the divine note of joy to all his purpose, sweetened and solemnized it at the same time. It was not like a great happiness in which he could forget himself, and which he must also forget for a time if something more serious had to be faced.

This morning, for the first time, influenced perhaps by the breath from outside which had come through Wilbraham's advent upon the scene, which, however, they put aside from them, they talked about the time when Viola should have gone away.

Their extreme youth moved them to sadness, which was not wholly painful because the time was not near yet, and present bliss was only heightened by the thought of parting. They were so far unlike most young lovers that no mention was made of writing, or even of meeting again. It was as if the contact between them was so close and so sure that however far apart they might be in space, and for whatever time, they would still be together.

Harry was serious about the future. "I don't know exactly what is going to happen," he said. "I'm supposed to be going to Sandhurst in January, but that's a long time ahead. I seem to see the war swallowing up everything. There's something to be done here about it, and perhaps it will be for me to do it. But there's nothing to show yet. I think there won't be till you go away, my darling. I think there's nothing that will come in the way of my being with you, and thinking about nothing but you."

"Do you think you will have to go and fight, Harry? Oh, surely you're too young for that, darling!"

"I'm not too young to love you."

She thought over this. It was one of the things he sometimes said that meant more than it seemed to. She loved those speeches of his, springing from something in him to which she could give all her faith and all her devotion. They helped her to plumb the depths in him, and she had never found anything there that did not make her glad and proud of loving him.

This time her pride brought the tears close to her eyes. There was more than the sweetness of young love in this--to be loved as something in full alliance with all the biggest things that a man might be called upon to do in the world, and to which he must bring all that he was and all that he had, even his life itself if it should be required of him.

"I shouldn't want you not to, Harry," she said.

He did not tell her of his conviction that the war would claim him. She was his to be protected, and some things she must be spared. When the time came, she would somehow be concerned in it, because she would be concerned in everything that he did, and whatever he should want of her then she would give him. He had as much confidence in her as she in him.

"The war is like a great shadow over everything," he said. "We're in the sunshine just now, you and I--the most glorious sunshine. I don't think that we need fear the shadow for ourselves. But for others--for some it's very deep."

The shadow seemed to creep closer and touch her heart as he spoke. They were silent for a time, her hand resting in his. The contact strengthened them both, and the shadow passed away from her. For the rest of their time together that morning they made love and built their airy rainbow castles, almost as unsubstantial as those of children. In fact they played with the idea of having Jane and Pobbles to live with them. It hardly seemed fair to be using the cabin in which they had a proprietary share and leave them out of it. They would pass suddenly from grave to gay in this way, and there were many times when the children could have taken a full part in their conversation without being at all in the way.

At about six o'clock that evening Wilbraham was walking along the woodland path that led from the cottage to the Castle. He walked slowly with his eyes on the ground all the time, and his face was very thoughtful. He started violently as he looked up to see Harry standing in the path in front of him.

For a moment they stood there looking at one another.

"Well?" said Harry.

Wilbraham's eyes dropped, and he walked on, Harry with him. "You've been meeting here," he said.

"Yes."

Another pause. Then from Wilbraham: "You've been making love."

"Making love? I don't like the expression. We love each other--yes."

Wilbraham said nothing, and they walked on together. Presently they came to a fallen tree by the side of the path. "Let's sit down here and have it out," said Wilbraham.

Harry spoke first. "I'm glad you know," he said. "I'd like all the world to know; you can tell why, now you've seen her. But I suppose it wouldn't do for mother and Granny to know--not just yet."

Wilbraham seemed to pull his determination together. "My dear boy," he said, "you mustn't take it for granted that they're not to know. It has come as a complete surprise to me; I don't know what to do about it yet."

Harry laughed. The situation seemed to contain no awkwardness for him, whatever doubts it might have brought to Wilbraham. "Before you settle that," he said, "tell me what you think of her."

"She's a very beautiful child," said Wilbraham, thoughtfully. He laid no stress on the word "child," to belittle Harry's confession of love. It was as she had struck him.

He had gone into the little parlour to find Bastian there, dressed more in accordance with what he had seemed to be than on the day before. A faint smell of his strong tobacco hung about the room, but it had been tidied, and freshened up with flowers, and tea was laid on the table, with signs of ceremony and care. Then Viola came in, and he had the impression of Bastian triumphantly watching him as he introduced her.

He did indeed open his eyes at first sight of her, as her father had foretold. He would not have been so surprised at the vision of her, fresh and delicate, very simply dressed in her white frock, with all the air about her of breeding and refinement, if it had not been for the memory of Bastian the day before, with his deteriorated tastes, and his talk of downfall. A flower, he had said of her, growing out of the mire; but who had tended her growing?

Mrs. Ivimey came in with the tea, and was voluble with Wilbraham about her ladyship and Sir Harry. Wilbraham's eyes were on Viola the whole time, and he saw the colour rise on her soft cheeks as Harry's name was mentioned, but made nothing of it at the time.

Nothing more was said about the Castle when Mrs. Ivimey had left the room. Wilbraham had not given the invitation that might have been expected of him. He recognized with a sense of gratitude that no hints towards it need be feared. Bastian showed up much more as a gentleman than on the afternoon before; his clothes were old enough but no longer disreputable, and he was obviously entirely free from the influence of drink. The difference in his speech and bearing seemed to exaggerate his state of the afternoon before into one of actual drunkenness.

They talked chiefly about books, and more particularly about poetry. Viola talked very little, but her father sometimes referred to her, as if to show with pride what she was. Her enthusiasms showed here and there. Wilbraham's wonder grew at her.

Harry came to his mind again. He brought his name in deliberately. "Harry, my pupil, used to shout that out when he first read it. He loves poetry, and it takes him like that."

Viola made no reply, but the flush dyed the rose-petal of her cheeks again. "It's the youth in him," her father said. "Poetry brings you real joy when you're young, doesn't it, Viola?"

She had to look up at last, and Wilbraham saw her eyes. She made a brave effort to speak evenly, but her voice trembled a little as she said, "Yes, all the beautiful things in the world make you glad."

Then Wilbraham knew, and a wave of sympathy and tenderness flowed over him, but was brought up short against the wall that all the aims of the past years had built up around Harry, and dashed back on him to overwhelm him. He emerged gasping, but with the instinct strong in him to keep his knowledge from being seen. In the rest of the time he stayed at the cottage nothing was said to cause Viola to betray herself further, but he was observing her all the time, and his bewilderment grew.

She seemed to have divined that the danger was over, and came out of her shell and smiled and prattled delightfully. Her happiness was too strong in her to be kept under, and she would not have been human, or feminine, if she had not wished to make a pleasant impression upon Wilbraham, who was so near to Harry. It was the impression of delicious sparkling youth that came to him most strongly. It was as if the confession was drawn out of him reluctantly when in his answer to Harry's question he said slowly: "She's a very beautiful child."

"Why didn't you teach me what a beautiful thing love is?" asked Harry. "We've read a lot about it together, but I never had an idea of it until now. I don't think anybody in the world has ever been so happy as I am."

Wilbraham was torn in two again. His appreciations were not all bookish, and he loved Harry. He saw that in a nature such as his love would come as a very beautiful thing, and his searching observation of Viola had revealed nothing in her that could make it less so. And yet--!

"How long have you known her?" he asked.

"What does it matter?" said Harry. "I've known her all my life. If I look back to any time in it, she was there, though I'd never seen her. We've been meeting every day, if that's what you mean."

It was what Wilbraham had meant, and he felt discomfort at having asked the question. It was the discomfort that must come from probing into this situation, with the fear before him of saying something that would smirch the bright purity of Harry's mind. Anything that brought his actions to the test must do that, if he came to understand what tests were applicable to his meetings with Viola.

"Why didn't you tell us?" seemed to be the safest thing to say, and he said it with a half hope that the answer would give him some handle, though without mental acknowledgment of the hope.

"Well, I felt somehow that you'd try to stop me," said the boy. "At least mother and Granny would. I did nearly tell mother, the first time I'd seen Viola, but something warned me not to. I've been glad since that I didn't. It has just been she and I--Viola and I. Oh, how I love her! I'm glad _you've_ seen her. But you must keep it to yourself. We haven't much longer together. I can't have our time spoilt."

He spoke almost with authority. With every moment Wilbraham felt some new little emotion of change and development too quick for him to master. Harry had been the most docile of pupils. Never once since his first dealings with him as a young child had he had to exercise authority against desires or inclinations of his. True, he had held the reins lightly, and never given him a rebuke or a direction that had mood instead of reason behind it; but it had sometimes crossed his mind that the boy was too docile, and that his sense of responsibility and self-mastery might be sapped if he was brought up to give unquestioning obedience to the directions of his elders. He had mentioned this fear to Lady Brent, and her answer to it had been of the kind that he had received once or twice before in his consultations with her, from which his confidence in her ultimate wisdom had been so firmly fixed. The same doubt, it seemed, had crossed her own mind. It was to be met by allowing Harry the fullest possible trust and freedom. If at any time he overstepped the freedom it was not to be treated as a fault. He was to be told why it was not advisable for him to do this or that, and the decision left to him. Once or twice this had happened, and once he had stuck out for his own will. It was when his nocturnal rambles had been discovered by chance, shortly after that night upon which Grant had seen him out in the park. Lady Brent, with calm and admirable self-restraint, had said: "Very well, Harry. After all, I don't know that there's any harm in it. If I had known of it a year ago I might have stopped it; but now you're old enough to do as you like in that sort of way."

No one observing the boy, Wilbraham had thought, could say that he was molly-coddled into submission. Few boys of his age had such freedom granted to them, or carried a more gallant air before the world; and the Grants, of whom he had taken counsel, as representing the views of the world more closely than he in his retirement could do, had supported him.

And yet, there had been the feeling that Harry was extraordinarily easy to manage--too amiably submissive, almost, to the guidance of his elders, and Wilbraham himself particularly.

But now--! Wilbraham mentally shook himself. Was he receiving instructions from Harry--and almost inclined to accept them submissively?

The little spurt to his pride took him a trifle farther than he had wished to go. "I don't think it's a matter for me to decide on, apart from your grandmother," he said.

Harry turned a surprised face on him. "No, it's for me to decide on," he said. "By and by I shall tell Granny--of course. But I don't in the least know when it will be. There's nothing to show yet."

The phrase struck Wilbraham oddly. Harry had used it once or twice to him before. "One has to decide upon things with one's brain," he said, "and out of one's experience--important things that may affect one's life. They can't be left to impulse."

"The two go together, I suppose," said Harry, almost with indifference.

It was one of those little speeches upon which Viola would hang as containing the quintessence of wisdom. She might not have understood this speech, but Wilbraham did, and it affected him profoundly. Here was that rarest of characters--one who had never played with his impulses, to give them scope beyond the guidance of his reason. He could trust his impulses because their springs were controlled.

"Shall we go on?" said Harry, rising.

Wilbraham rose too, slowly, after a pause of reflection, and they walked on. Viola's name was not mentioned again between them.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*DILEMMA*

Wilbraham walked up and down in a retired part of the garden where no one was likely to disturb him. Sometimes, because he had walked rather farther that afternoon already than was his custom, he sat down on a garden seat at the end of the alley where he was. But only his body was at rest; his mind was eagerly searching for the right course. If only it were as straight and as easy to tread as this soft turfed walk between the uncompromising green walls, with the evening sun flooding the narrow space and warming even the sombre tones of the yew to some leniency!

He did not know where Harry was. He had left him when they had reached the house. For all he could tell, he might have gone straight back to Viola; there was an hour yet before dinner. But he would hardly have come right back to the Castle with him, to talk chiefly about the war, if he had meant to do that, and he had let drop something which showed that he had no intention of staying out during the dinner hour. Perhaps he would go to her afterwards, as he must have done on occasions before. It did not much matter. He had claimed the right to go to her when he pleased, and Wilbraham had not controverted it. His authority seemed to have come to a very sudden end, he thought with a wry smile.

There remained Lady Brent's authority. Should he invoke it? That was what he had to decide for himself before he left this garden alley, the retired scene of his cogitations.

Harry had extracted no promise from him. That pleased him, as it had pleased Grant when he had acted in the same way over his secret midnight roaming. They had been justified in their treatment of him to that extent. He would be ashamed of nothing that he had done, not even to the extent of asking that it should be kept secret where he had shown that secrecy was what he wanted--and expected.

That made it all the more difficult for Wilbraham. He would seem to be breaking a promise if he told Lady Brent, though he had given no promise. He would at least be setting himself against Harry in a matter which Harry had claimed the right to decide for himself. He wanted to be very sure that the boy was wrong in his decision before he did that.

He loved and admired Harry at that moment more than he had ever done. He had a clearer vision than ever before of the boy's clean finely-tempered nature. He felt himself rebuked by it, and what thoughts he spared for himself, as apart from his duty towards Harry and towards Lady Brent, worked rather sadly upon the conviction of his own weakness.

He had kept silent about his previous visit to Bastian only partly because of his wish to judge further for himself before he gave or withheld the suggested invitation to the Castle. He remembered now the pleasure with which he had set out that afternoon to go to the cottage, and knew that its chief source was the anticipation of drinking with Bastian--drinking just the amount and no more to give him the slight exhilaration that he had gained the day before. Bastian had offered him nothing to drink except tea. Viola's presence in the little parlour had made the scene of the previous afternoon look ugly in the memory of it. He was very glad now that it had been so. It would have been too painful to have the burden of that secret upon him while deciding what he should do with Harry's secret. Lady Brent would certainly have looked upon it as a fall, whatever view he might encourage himself to take of it.

But surely, weak as he was, he had had something to do with making Harry, who was of so much finer clay, what he had grown into. He had pointed him to noble things, fed his mind upon fine utterance of fine thoughts, opened the door for him to all the rich stores of wisdom laid up from the past. Yes, he had done that, though he had had small profit of it for himself. He was consoled by the thought that Harry could not be what he was if any breath of his own unworthiness had touched him.

He threw off the discomfort. He would act now for Harry's good, as he had always acted. There had been nothing wrong in him there.

He threw off, also, not without some impatience, the influence of Harry's assuredness. If it was to be accepted that the boy could do no wrong according to his lights--which really seemed to be what it was coming to--it was not the less necessary to judge the situation by lights which did not shine upon him, the glimmer of which, indeed, had been deliberately curtained from him.

The love of a boy and a girl! Oh, it was a touching thing, when they were a boy and a girl like Harry and Viola. Wilbraham rejected then and there any suggestion that might have come from his dinted experience that Viola was not Harry's mate in innocence and purity. He had seen her for himself. All that he knew of her father, all that he did not know of her origin and upbringing, could go by the board. His heart spoke for her, his sentiment went out to her. He was a poor, weak, self-indulgent creature, he told himself, but he did recognize goodness and purity when he saw it. Besides, what else could have attracted Harry? He was doubly armed there.

But Lady Brent wouldn't see it like that. The outside resemblances between what had happened to Harry's father and what was now happening to Harry would be too strong for her. She would think that all for which she had worked and sacrificed herself through long years would be destroyed if Harry was caught in the snares of love at this early age. She would put her spoke in. She would use all the wisdom of which she was capable--and she had shown great wisdom in the past--in putting a stop to it; but at least she would try to put a stop to it.

And then what would happen? Wilbraham saw a sharp contest between her and Harry, and, with the deeper vision that had come to him of the boy's character, he felt it to be extremely doubtful whether Lady Brent would win. There would be a state of open conflict, and Harry would be more firmly fixed in his courses than before.

Boy and girl attachments--they faded out. It was absurd to suppose that at seventeen Harry could have any idea of marriage, however much he and Viola might have played with the overwhelming bliss of some day being always together. He was not as his father had been; he would marry, when the time came for him to do so, with a full sense of his responsibility. And Viola was not like Harry's mother. No, the danger of a hasty secret marriage could be ruled out; it was an affront to both of them to think of it.

Harry would go his way, and Viola would go hers. Their ways lay naturally very far apart. They might write to each other for a time, and they might see one another occasionally; but what would it matter? At the end of four years, when Harry would be twenty-one, it was most probable that this almost childish love passage would be forgotten, or exist only as a fragrant memory.

Wilbraham divined in himself at this point a faint regret at the thought of this beautiful boy and girl ceasing to love one another. Viola had made a deep impression upon him.

At any rate, there was no harm in it. Probably there was even good in it. Harry would soon be leaving home, to plunge straight into a world for which Wilbraham had sometimes thought that his training had been a dangerous preparation. With this innocent early love of his to accompany him, he would be armed against many of the temptations to which sheltered youth does succumb when the shelter has at last been withdrawn.

Wilbraham felt a sense of relief at having come to these conclusions. He was sure they were right. Harry had conquered. He should be left free to sun himself in the glamour of his boy's courtship. How pretty it was to think of them billing and cooing like two young turtle-doves in their leafy fastnesses! Wilbraham's lettered thoughts flew to Theocritus, and he murmured soft Greek words to himself, but decided that there would be a delicacy about the wooing of these children that could not be matched in Sicilian idylls. He rose from his seat and made his way towards the house. He had decided. He would leave them alone.

But as he dressed for dinner in a leisurely way, lingering often at his window to enjoy the scents and sounds of the garden dusk, the thought of Lady Brent once more occurred to him and his face grew thoughtful again.

Hadn't he rather left her out of account? If the decision had been so easy to come to, and seemed so right now it was made, wouldn't she be quite as capable of making it as he had been?

Well, perhaps! And whether she arrived at the same conclusion or not, one thing was quite certain--that she would be vastly annoyed with Wilbraham if she knew that he had taken it upon himself to decide without consultation with her.

But his doubts were soon dissipated. He had decided for Harry, and was with him now. It might be rather painful at some future time to face her offended surprise, but, after all, he was a man and she was a woman. And Harry had proved himself a man already. They would only be in the same boat. Wilbraham smiled to himself, put on his coat and went down to dinner.

He had had some idea of giving Harry a word to indicate that his secret was safe, but there was no opportunity before they went in to dinner, and afterwards he was glad that he had not done so. For Harry did not even give him a look of inquiry. He chatted and laughed and seemed to be in a mood of quite unburdened high spirits. So had Viola been, but Viola had not known that Wilbraham had discovered their secret, and Harry did. Wilbraham was pleased to think that Harry's evident absence of anxiety was the result of his trust in him. He had surprised his secret and he would respect it. What could he do otherwise? Wilbraham was confirmed in his decision to leave Lady Brent out of knowledge of it, but could not forbear an exercise of imagination as he glanced at her and wondered what she would do if the truth were suddenly blurted out to her.

A remarkable woman, certainly! She provided another little surprise that evening when for the first time she seemed to contemplate the continuance of the war for such a time as would involve Harry in it. It might be that it would take a year or even more to bring it to a conclusion. Lord Kitchener was said to have prophesied three years, which was impossible to believe; but the South African War had lasted for two, when everybody thought it would be over in a few weeks. It might be that officers would be wanted more quickly than they could be turned out in normal times, and that Harry's Sandhurst training would be speeded up. They must bear that in mind.

The prospect did not seem to cause her any dismay, or if it did she concealed it. But poor Mrs. Brent raised a wail of protest. Surely they couldn't take boys of eighteen, as Harry would only be in a year's time. It would be wicked--unheard of.

"Not unheard of," said Lady Brent. "And not wicked either. For our own sakes we should wish Harry kept out of it; but if he were of an age when others went we should wish him to go. However, let us hope that there will be no necessity."

"I don't think I hope that," said Harry. "I don't want the war to last, because I think war is a horrible thing. All the same, I wish I were fighting in this one."

Wilbraham controverted the opinion that war was a horrible thing. Nations were apt to get lazy and selfish over long periods of peace, and wanted rousing out of themselves, just as sluggish human bodies did. War was a tonic and a cleanser.

"Perhaps it is, for those who can fight, with a great idea behind them," said Harry. "For all the rest I think it's beastly. At any rate, an Englishman could fight in this war and know he was doing the right thing. I wish I were a year older now."

Mrs. Brent breathed a deep sigh and looked at him hungrily. It was of no use her saying anything. If Harry's fighting or not fighting should come to be decided on, she would have no voice in the decision. She looked anxiously at Lady Brent, who only said: "Fortunately, the matter isn't in our hands."

"People of my age are enlisting," said Harry, shortly.

Lady Brent took this up at once. Perhaps she had already thought of it. "It is a fine thing for a young man to do," she said. "But for those who have shown their willingness to fight through generations there is an even higher duty, which is to lead. And you cannot lead without the proper training."

Harry did not reply, and the subject was dropped. But to Wilbraham, with his senses more acute from what he had learned of him, came a glimpse into still other chambers of his mind. His silence was not that of one who had received an answer which settled a doubtful point. In this, as in other matters, he would take his own way, but the way was not yet clear to him, and he would not talk about it beforehand.

It had come of late to be Harry's habit to stay with Wilbraham after the women had left the table, while he drank his coffee and smoked a cigarette. He had done it at first on occasions, but now seldom went away with his mother and grandmother. It was a habit that marked his growing manhood, but he could still have left him without remark if he had wished to do so. If he should leave him to-night, Wilbraham thought it would be a sign that he did not wish to talk to him again on the subject of which both their minds were full.

But he came back again after opening the door for his mother and grandmother.

How young and fair and slender he was, thought Wilbraham, and he moved lightly across the great hall and took his seat, as of right, in his chair of dignity. Nothing but a beautiful boy, after all, too young as yet by years to take upon himself any large responsibilities, and yet the much older man waited instinctively on him for an indication of the new relationship that was to exist between them.

The servants came in with the coffee, and until they had left the room again nothing was said. Harry looked thoughtful, and graver than usual.

When they were once more alone he said: "I want you to do something for me, and I don't want Granny to know--nor, of course, mother. It's for you to say whether you'll do it or not, but I want you to promise in any case not to let them know that I've asked you."

Wilbraham was slightly huffed. "I don't know why you should want to extract a promise of secrecy beforehand," he said. "You didn't this evening, but I've thought it over and decided to keep to myself what I found out."

Harry looked puzzled for a moment, and then smiled. "I hoped you would," he said, "for now I shall be able to talk to you about her."

"Thanks," said Wilbraham, drily. "I'm glad I'm going to get some reward."

Harry laughed. "A young man in love is supposed to be rather a bore, isn't he?" he said. "I seem to remember having read so, but people in love haven't interested me much so far. Well, but of course that was for you to decide--whether you'd keep it to yourself or not. You might not have thought it right to do so; I couldn't tell. But this is something quite different--not about Viola, you know. I want you to find out something for me, and I don't want Granny to know yet that I'm thinking about it. You may think she ought to know."

"I suppose it's something about the war," said Wilbraham, with the memory before him of Harry's silence after that speech of Lady Brent's at dinner.

"I shan't tell you what it is unless it's only between you and me," said Harry. "I've a right to my own thoughts."

"Very well, then, I promise."

"I want you to find out for me exactly what chances there are of my being able to get a commission without going through the regular Sandhurst training. I don't think I want to wait for that if there are other ways."

Wilbraham considered this. "You're only seventeen," he said.

"Nearly eighteen," said Harry, "and a fine-grown boy for my age."

"Why shouldn't you want your grandmother to know? You heard what she said just now. If things are going to be altered so that training is cut short, she's quite ready for you to take advantage of that."

"Ah, yes. She couldn't help it, you see. But I think she'd do what she could to stop me doing anything that could be helped. I want to know if there is any other way before I say anything to her at all. I know so little about it. But supposing I could get my commission quicker by enlisting, for instance."

"Oh, my dear boy, you wouldn't want to do that. You heard what she said. She was quite right there. I believe the men of your family have been soldiers for as long as the men of any family."

"That's just why I want to be one, now there's some sense in soldiering, and as quickly as possible."

"Yes, but as an officer. We're not so hard pressed yet that we want to cut grindstones with razors. It would be waste of material for you to enlist."

"Not if it led more quickly to being an officer. That's what I should do it for. I know it has been done. People did it in the South African War."

"Well, yes. But that was in order to go and fight--at once. You're not ready for that yet. You won't be eighteen till December. They wouldn't take you anyhow, unless you concealed your age, which, of course, you wouldn't do--couldn't do, either, because you're known. Besides, your grandmother, who is your legal guardian, could stop you. Why hurry things? You'll be at Sandhurst in a few months' time. Then if there's any way to hurry things up you can find it out for yourself. I don't want to act against your grandmother in this, Harry. I don't think it's fair to her."

"Well, perhaps it wouldn't be quite fair to you to ask you to do it," said Harry, with his engaging smile; "at least, not if nothing could come out of it. I suppose you're quite sure that they wouldn't take me till I was eighteen."

"Oh, yes. The proclamations say so. You can see it for yourself."

"Oh, well, then," said the boy, rising from his seat, "I suppose there's nothing to be done just yet. I only wanted to be quite sure that I wasn't leaving anything undone that I could do. I don't think Granny takes quite the same view, you know. Anyhow, there's nothing to bother her or mother for some months to come. I think mother will be waiting for me."

He passed Wilbraham, still sitting at the table, and put his hand on his shoulder. "I shall see her to-morrow," he said, in a low voice. He laughed a boyish laugh of sheer happiness and ran out of the hall.

*CHAPTER XVII*

*THE END OF THE SUMMER*

It was a golden day in September, which is perhaps the most beautiful of all English months, though touched with a gentle melancholy that may be either soothing or saddening, according to circumstances. Regarded as the time for taking up a new spell of work or duty after the relaxation of summer holiday, it is a delightful month, especially when the surroundings in which the work is to be done are such as existed at Royd. The Grant family had returned from the seaside and the Vicar-novelist was positively revelling in his enjoyment of home, and declaring that the best day of a holiday was its last. He had acquired a splendid idea for a novel which should excel all previous novels of his by many degrees, and put into the shade a large number of novels by other writers who had hitherto enjoyed a success in advance of his own. He had sat down to write the first chapter on the morning after their arrival at the Vicarage, and felt to the full the restful charm of his clean, comfortable room, with all his books and conveniences around him, and the garden outside in the full coloured glow of its autumn profusion.

Jane and Pobbles had resumed their studies under the guidance of Miss Minster, and if they were without the experience of satisfaction on that account which their father enjoyed, there was yet satisfaction to be gained from returning to the society of Harry, to whom they had an enormous amount of information to impart.

Harry had also begun work again. The next three months were to be strenuous ones for him, with many hours to be spent with Wilbraham and many more with an army coach who had been called in to supplement Wilbraham's deficiencies. This was Mr. Hamerton, an obscure man of middle age, who hated coaching embryo subalterns, hated the society of women, and enjoyed life only when in the embrace of the purest of pure mathematics. He was probably the most serenely happy of all the inhabitants of Royd Castle at this time. His hours with Harry were strictly defined, and his pupil, though not an enthusiast in mathematics as he would have liked him to be, showed intelligence and application. The house was not always full of fresh people with whom he had to begin all over again, and he was not expected to spend valuable hours in desultory and desolating conversation with the ladies of the house itself, whom he met only at meal-times. He had most of his time to himself in the large quiet house, which he seldom quitted, and Harry had given up to him his room in the tower, from the top of which he could observe the stars through a telescope of more respectable dimensions than it was customary to find in a country house. Mr. Hamerton, retiring to the absolute seclusion of his room, and the hours of undisturbed study or astronomical contemplation so happily accorded him, would rub his hands with furtive glee over his good fortune in having obtained such employment as this; and the relief to all other members of the household in having him out of the way was unspeakable.