WATERSPRINGS

BY

ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON

"For in the wilderness shall waters
break out, and streams in the desert"

1913

CONTENTS

WATERSPRINGS

I

THE SCENE

The bright pale February sunlight lay on the little court of Beaufort College, Cambridge, on the old dull-red smoke-stained brick, the stone mullions and mouldings, the Hall oriel, the ivied buttresses and battlements, the turrets, the tiled roofs, the quaint chimneys, and the lead-topped cupola over all. Half the court was in shadow. It was incredibly picturesque, but it had somehow the look of a fortress rather than of a house. It did not exist only to be beautiful, but had a well-worn beauty of age and use. There was no domestic adornment of flower-bed or garden-border, merely four squares of grass, looking like faded carpets laid on the rather uncompromising pebbles which floored the pathways. The golden hands of the clock pointed to a quarter to ten, and the chimes uttered their sharp, peremptory voices. Two or three young men stood talking at the vaulted gateway, and one or two figures in dilapidated gowns and caps, holding books, fled out of the court.

A firm footstep came down one of the stairways; a man of about forty passed out into the court—Howard Kennedy, Fellow and Classical Lecturer of the College. His thick curly brown hair showed a trace of grey, his short pointed beard was grizzled, his complexion sanguine, his eyebrows thick. There were little vague lines on his forehead, and his eyes were large and clear; an interesting, expressive face, not technically handsome, but both clever and good-natured. He was carelessly dressed in rather old but well-cut clothes, and had an air of business-like decisiveness which became him well, and made him seem comfortably at home in the place; he nodded and smiled to the undergraduates at the gate, who smiled back and saluted. He met a young man rushing down the court, and said to him, "That's right, hurry up! You'll just be in time," a remark which was answered by a gesture of despair from the young man. Then he went up the court towards the Hall, entered the flagged passage, looked for a moment at the notices on the screen, and went through into the back court, which was surrounded by a tiny cloister.

Here he met an elderly man, clean-shaven, fresh-coloured, acute-looking, who wore a little round bowler hat perched on a thick shock of white hair. He was dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, with a black tie, and wore rather light grey trousers. One would have taken him for an old-fashioned country solicitor. He was, as a matter of fact, the Vice-Master and Senior Fellow of the College—Mr. Redmayne, who had spent his whole life there. He greeted the younger man with a kindly, brisk, ironical manner, saying, "You look very virtuous, Kennedy! What are you up to?"

"I am going for a turn in the garden," said Howard; "will you come with me?"

"You are very good," said Mr. Redmayne; "it will be quite like a dialogue of Plato!"

They went down the cloister to a low door in the corner, which Howard unlocked, and turned into a small old-fashioned garden, surrounded on three sides by high walls, and overlooking the river on the fourth side; a gravel path ran all round; there were a few trees, bare and leafless, and a big bed of shrubs in the centre of the little lawn, just faintly pricked with points of green. A few aconites showed their yellow heads above the soil.

"What are those wretched little flowers?" said Mr. Redmayne, pointing at them contemptuously.

"Oh, don't say that," said Howard; "they are always the first to struggle up, and they are the earliest signs of spring. Those are aconites."

"Aconites? Deadly poison!" said Mr. Redmayne, in a tone of horror. "Well, I don't object to them,—though I must say that I prefer the works of man to the works of God at all times and in all places. I don't like the spring—it's a languid and treacherous time; it always makes me feel that I wish I were doing something else."

They paced for some minutes round the garden gossiping, Redmayne making very trenchant criticisms, but evidently enjoying the younger man's company. At something which he said, Howard uttered a low laugh, which was pleasant to hear from the sense of contented familiarity which it gave.

"Ah, you may laugh, my young friend," said Redmayne, "but when you have reached my time of life and see everything going to pieces round you, you have occasionally to protest against the general want of backbone, and the sentimentality of the age."

"Yes, but you don't REALLY object," said Howard; "you know you enjoy your grievances!"

"Well, I am a philosopher," said Mr. Redmayne, "but you are overdoing your philanthropics. Luncheon in Hall for the boys, dinner at seven-thirty for the boys, a new cricket-ground for the boys; you pamper them! Now in my time, when the undergraduates complained about the veal in Hall, old Grant sent for us third-year men, and said that he understood there were complaints about the veal, of which he fully recognised the justice, and so they would go back to mutton and beef and stick to them, and then he bowed us out. Now the Bursar would send for the cook, and they would mingle their tears together."

Howard laughed again, but made no comment, and presently said he must go back to work. As they went in, Mr. Redmayne put his hand in Howard's arm, and said, "Don't mind me, my young friend! I like to have my growl, but I am proud of the old place, and you do a great deal for it."

Howard smiled, and tucked the old man's hand closer to his side with a movement of his arm. "I shall come and fetch you out again some morning," he said.

He got back to his rooms at ten o'clock, and a moment afterwards a young man appeared in a gown. Howard sat down at his table, pulled a chair up to his side, produced a corrected piece of Latin prose, made some criticisms and suggestions, and ended up by saying, "That's a good piece! You have improved a good deal lately, and that would get you a solid mark." Then he sat for a minute or two talking about the books his pupil was reading, and indicating the points he was to look out for, till at half-past ten another youth appeared to go through the same process. This went on until twelve o'clock. Howard's manner was kindly and business-like, and the undergraduates were very much at their ease. One of them objected to one of his criticisms. Howard turned to a dictionary and showed him a paragraph. "You will see I am right," he said, "but don't hesitate to object to anything I say—these usages are tricky things!" The undergraduate smiled and nodded.

Just before twelve o'clock he was left alone for five minutes, and a servant brought in a note. Howard opened it, and taking a sheet of paper, began to write. At the hour a youth appeared, of very boyish aspect, curly-haired, fresh-looking, ingenuous. Howard greeted him with a smile. "Half a minute, Jack!" he said. "There's the paper—not the Sportsman, I'm afraid, but you can console yourself while I just finish this note." The boy sat down by the fire, but instead of taking the paper, drew a solemn-looking cat, which was sitting regarding the hearth, on to his knee, and began playing with it. Presently Howard threw his pen down. "Come along," he said. The boy, still carrying the cat, came and sat down beside him. The lesson proceeded as before, but there was a slight difference in Howard's manner of speech, as of an uncle with a favourite nephew. At the end, he pushed the paper into the boy's hand, and said, "No, that isn't good enough, you know; it's all too casual—it isn't a bit like Latin: you don't do me credit!" He spoke incisively enough, but shook his head with a smile. The boy said nothing, but got up, vaguely smiling, and holding the cat tucked under his arm—a charming picture of healthy and indifferent youth. Then he said in a rich infantile voice, "Oh, it's all right. I didn't do myself justice this time. You shall see!"

At this moment the old servant came in and asked Howard if he would take lunch.

"Yes; I won't go into Hall," said Howard. "Lunch for two—you can stay and lunch with me, Jack; and I will give you a lecture about your sins."

The boy said, "Yes, thanks very much; I'd love to."

Jack Sandys was a pupil of Howard's in whom he had a special interest. He was the son of Frank Sandys, the Vicar of the Somersetshire parish where Mrs. Graves, Howard's aunt, lived at the Manor-house. Frank Sandys was a cousin of Mrs. Graves' deceased husband. She had advised the Vicar to send Jack to Beaufort, and had written specially commending him to Howard's care. But the boy had needed little commendation. From the first moment that Jack Sandys had appeared, smiling and unembarrassed, in Howard's room, a relation that was almost filial and paternal had sprung up between them. He had treated Howard from the outset with an innocent familiarity, and asked him the most direct questions. He was not a particularly intellectual youth, though he had some vague literary interests; but he was entirely healthy, good, and quite irresistibly charming in his naivete and simplicity. Howard had a dislike of all sentimentality, but the suppressed paternal instinct which was strong in him had been awakened; and though he made no emotional advances, he found himself strangely drawn to the boy, with a feeling for which he could not wholly account. He did not care for Jack's athletic interests; his tastes and mental processes were obscure to him. Howard's own nature was at once intellectual and imaginative, but he felt an extreme delight in the fearless and direct confidence which the boy showed in him. He criticised his work unsparingly, he rallied him on his tastes, he snubbed him, but all with a sense of real and instinctive sympathy which made everything easy. The boy never resented anything that he said, asked his advice, looked to him to get him out of any small difficulties that arose. They were not very much together, and mostly met only on official occasions. Howard was a busy man, and had little time, or indeed taste, for vague conversation. Jack was a boy of natural tact, and he treated all the authorities with the same unembarrassed directness. Undergraduates are quick to remark on any sort of favouritism, but only if they think that the favoured person gets any unfair advantage by his intimacy. But Howard came down on Jack just as decisively as he came down on anyone else whose work was unsatisfactory. It was known that they were a sort of cousins; and, moreover, Jack Sandys was generally popular, though only in his first year, because he was free from any touch of uppishness, and of an imperturbable good-humour.

But his own feeling for the boy surprised Howard. He did not think him very interesting, nor had they much in common except a perfect goodwill. It was to Howard as if Jack represented something beyond and further than himself, for which Howard cared—as one might love a house for the sake of someone that had inhabited it, or because of events that had happened there. He tried vaguely to interest Jack in some of the things he cared about, but wholly in vain. That cheerful youth went quietly on his own way—modest, handsome, decided, knowing exactly what he liked, with very material tastes and ambitions, not in the least emotional or imaginative, and yet with a charm of which all were conscious. He was bored by any violent attempts at friendship, and quite content in almost anyone's company, naturally self-contained and temperate, making no claims and giving no pledges; and yet Howard was deeply haunted by the sense that Jack stood for something almost bewilderingly fine which he himself could not comprehend or interpret, and of which the boy himself was wholly and radiantly unconscious. It gave him, indeed, a sudden warmth about the heart to see Jack in the court, or even to think of him as living within the same walls; but there was nothing jealous or exclusive about his interest, and when they met, there was often nothing particular to say.

Presently lunch was announced, and Howard led the way to a little panelled parlour which looked out on the river. They both ate with healthy appetites; and presently Jack, looking about him, said, "This room is rather nice! I don't know how you make your rooms so nice?"

"Mostly by having very little in them except what I want," said Howard. "These panelled rooms don't want any ornaments; people spoil rooms by stuffing them, just as you spoil my cat,"—Jack was feeding the cat with morsels from his plate.

"It's a nice cat," said Jack; "at least I like it in your rooms. I wouldn't have one in my rooms, not if I were paid for it—it would be what the Master calls a serious responsibility." Presently, after a moment's silence, Jack said, "It's rather convenient to be related to a don, I think. By the way, what sort of screw do they give you—I mean your income—I suppose I oughtn't to ask?"

"It isn't usually done," said Howard, "but I don't mind your asking, and I don't mind your knowing. I have about six hundred a year here."

"Oh, then I was right," said Jack. "Symonds said that all the dons had about fifteen hundred a year out of the fees; he said that it wouldn't be worth their while to do it for less. But I said it was much less. My father only gets about two hundred a year out of his living, and it all goes to keep me at Cambridge. He says that when he is vexed about things; but he must have plenty of his own. I wish he would really tell me. Don't you think people ought to tell their sons about their incomes?"

"I am afraid you are a very mercenary person," said Howard.

"No, I'm not," said Jack; "only I think one ought to know, and then one could arrange. Father's awfully good about it, really; but if ever I spend too much, he shakes his head and talks about the workhouse. I used to be frightened, but I don't believe in the workhouse now."

When luncheon was over, they went back to the other room. It was true that, as Jack had said, Howard managed to make something pleasant out of his rooms. The study was a big place looking into the court; it was mostly lined with books, the bookcases going round the room in a band about three feet from the floor and about seven feet high. It was a theory of Howard's that you ought to be able to see all your books without either stooping or climbing. There was a big knee-hole table and half a dozen chairs. There was an old portrait in oils over the mantelpiece, several arm-chairs, one with a book-rest. Half a dozen photographs stood on the mantelpiece, and there was practically nothing else in the room but carpets and curtains. Jack lit a cigarette, sank into a chair, and presently said, "You must get awfully sick of the undergraduates, I should think, day after day?"

"No, I don't," said Howard; "in fact I must confess that I like work and feel dull without it—but that shows that I am an elderly man."

"Yes, I don't care about my work," said Jack, "and I think I shall get rather tired of being up here before I have done with it. It's rather pointless, I think. Of course it's quite amusing; but I want to do something real, make some real money, and talk about business. I shall go into the city, I think."

"I don't believe you care about anything but money," said Howard; "you are a barbarian!"

"No, I don't care about money," said Jack; "only one must have enough—what I like are REAL things. I couldn't go on just learning things up till I was twenty-three, and then teaching them till I was sixty-three. Of course I think it is awfully good of you to do it, but I can't think why or how you do it."

"I suppose I don't care about real things," said Howard.

"No, I can't quite make you out," said Jack with a smiling air, "because of course you are quite different from the other dons—nobody would suppose you were a don—everyone says that."

"It's very kind of you to say so," said Howard, "but I am not sure that it is a compliment—a tradesman ought to be a tradesman, and not to be ashamed of it. I'm a sophist, of course."

"What's a sophist?" said Jack. "Oh, I know. You lectured about the sophists last term. I don't remember what they were exactly, but I thought the lecture awfully good—quite amusing! They were a sort of parsons, weren't they?"

"You are a wonderful person, Jack!" said Howard, laughing. "I declare I have never had such extraordinary things said to me as you have said in the last half-hour."

"Well, I want to know about people," said Jack, "and I think it pays to ask them. You don't mind, do you? That's the best thing about you, that I can say what I think to you without putting my foot in it. But you said you were going to lecture me about my sins—come on!"

"No," said Howard, "I won't. You are not serious enough to-day, and I am not vexed enough. You know quite well what I think. There isn't any harm in you; but you are idle, and you are inquisitive. I don't want you to be very different, on the whole, if only you would work a little more and take more interest in things."

"Well," said Jack, "I do take interest—that's the mischief; there isn't time to work—that's the truth! I shall scrape through the Trip, and then I shall have done with all this nonsense about the classics; it really is humbug, isn't it? Such a fuss about nothing. The books I like are those in which people say what they might say, not those in which they say what they have had days to invent. I don't see the good of that. Why should I work, when I don't feel interested?"

"Because whatever you do, you will have to do things in which you are not interested," said Howard.

"Well, I think I will wait and see," said Jack. "And now I must be off. I really have said some awful things to you to-day, and I must apologise; but I can't help it when I am with you; I feel I must say just what comes into my head; I must fly; thank you for lunch; and I truly will do better, but mind only for YOU, and not because I think it's any good." He put down the cat with a kiss. "Good-bye, Mimi," he said; "remember me, I beseech you!" and he hurried away.

Howard sat still for a minute or two, looking at the fire; then he gave a laugh, got up, stretched himself, and went out for a walk.

Even so quiet a thing as a walk was not unattended by a certain amount of ceremonial. Howard passed some six or seven men of his acquaintance, some of whom presented a stick or raised a stiff hand without a smile or indeed any sign of recognition; one went so far as to say, "Hullo, Kennedy!" and one eager conversationalist went so far as to say, "Out for a walk?" Howard pushed on, walking lightly and rapidly, and found himself at last at Barton, one of those entirely delightful pastoral villages that push up so close to Cambridge on every side; a vague collection of quaint irregular cottages, whitewashed and thatched, with bits of green common interspersed, an old manorial farm with its byres and ricks, surrounded by a moat fringed with little pollarded elms. The plain ancient tower of the church looked gravely out over all. In the distance, over pastoral country, rose low wolds, pleasantly shaped, skirted with little hamlets, surrounded by orchards; the old untroubled necessary work of the world flows on in these fields and villages, peopled with lives hardly conscious of themselves, with no aims or theories, just toiling, multiplying, dying, existing, it would seem, merely to feed and clothe the more active part of the world. Howard loved such little interludes of silence, out in the fresh country, when the calm life of tree and herb, the delicate whisper of dry, evenly-blowing breezes, tranquillised and hushed his restless thoughts. He lost himself in a formless reverie, exercising no control over his trivial thoughts.

By four o'clock he was back, made himself some tea, put on a cap and gown, and walked out to a meeting. In a high bare room in the University offices the Committee sat. The Vice-Chancellor, a big, grave, solid man, Master of St. Benedict's, sat in courteous state. Half a dozen dons sat round the great tables, ranged in a square. The business was mostly formal. The Vice-Chancellor read the points from a paper in his resonant voice, comments and suggestions were made, and the Secretary noted down conclusions. Howard was struck, as he often had been before, to see how the larger questions of principle passed almost unnoticed, while the smaller points, such as the wording of a notice, were eagerly and humorously debated by men of acute minds and easy speech. It was over in half an hour. Howard strolled off with one of the members, and then, returning to his rooms, wrote some letters, and looked up a lecture for the next day, till the bell rang for Hall.

Beaufort was a hospitable and sociable College, and guests often appeared at dinner. On this night Mr. Redmayne was in the chair, at the end of a long table; eight or ten dons were present. A gong was struck; an undergraduate came up and scrambled through a Latin Grace from a board which he held in his hand. The tables filled rapidly with lively young men full of talk and appetite. Howard found himself sitting next one of his colleagues, on the other side of him being an ancient crony of Mr. Redmayne's, the Dean of a neighbouring College. The talk was mainly local and personal, diverging at times into politics. It was brisk, sensible, good-natured conversation, by no means unamusing. Mr. Redmayne was an unashamed Tory, and growled denunciations at a democratic Government, whom he credited with every political vice under the sun, depicting the Cabinet as men fishing in troubled seas with philanthropic baits to catch votes. One of the younger dons, an ardent Liberal, made a mild protest. "Ah," said Mr. Redmayne, "you are still the prey of idealistic illusions. Politics are all based, not on principles or programmes, but on the instinctive hatred of opponents." There was a laugh at this. "You may laugh," said Mr. Redmayne, "but you will find it to be true. Peace and goodwill are pretty words to play with, but it is combativeness which helps the world along; not the desire to be at peace, but the wish to maul your adversary!"

It was the talk of busy men who met together, not to discuss, but to eat, and conversed only to pass the time. But it was all good-humoured enough, and even the verbal sharpness which was employed was evidence of much mutual confidence and esteem.

Howard thought, looking down the Hall, when the meal was in full fling, what a picturesque, cheerful, lively affair it all was. The Hall was lighted only by candles in heavy silver candlesticks, which flared away all down the tables. In the dark gallery a couple of sconces burned still and clear. The dusty rafters, the dim portraits above the panelling, the gleam of gilded cornices were a pleasant contrast to the lively talk, the brisk coming and going, the clink and clatter below. It was noisy indeed, but noisy as a healthy and friendly family party is noisy, with no turbulence. Once or twice a great shout of laughter rang out from the tables and died away. There was no sign of discipline, and yet the whole was orderly enough. The carvers carved, the waiters hurried to and fro, the swing-doors creaked as the men hurried out. It was a very business-like, very English scene, without any ceremony or parade, and yet undeniably stately and vivid.

The undergraduates finished their dinners with inconceivable rapidity, and the Hall was soon empty, save for the more ceremonious and deliberate party at the high table. Presently these adjourned in procession to the Parlour, a big room, comfortably panelled, opening off the Hall, where the same party sat round the fire at little tables, sipped a glass of port, and went on to coffee and cigarettes, while the talk became more general. Howard felt, as he had often felt before, how little attention even able and intellectual Englishmen paid to the form of their talk. There was hardly a grammatical sentence uttered, never an elaborate one; the object was, it seemed, to get the thought uttered as quickly and unconcernedly as possible, and even the anecdotes were pared to the bone. A clock struck nine, and Mr. Redmayne rose. The party broke up, and Howard went off to his rooms.

He settled down to look over a set of compositions. But he was in a somewhat restless frame of mind to-night, and a not unpleasant mood of reflection and retrospect came over him. What an easy, full, lively existence his was! He seemed to himself to be perfectly contented. He remembered how he, the only son of rather elderly parents, had gone through Winchester with mild credit. He had never had any difficulties to contend with, he thought. He had been popular, not distinguished at anything—a fair athlete, a fair scholar, arousing no jealousies or enmities. He had been naturally temperate and self-restrained. He had drifted on to Beaufort as a Scholar, and it had been the same thing over again—no ambitions, no failures, friends in abundance. Then his father had died, and it had been so natural for him, on being elected to a Fellowship, just to carry on the same life; he had to settle to work at once, as his mother was not well off and much invalided. She had not long survived his father. He had taught, taken pupils, made a fair income. He had had no break of travel, no touch with the world; a few foreign tours in the company of an old friend had given him nothing but an emotional tincture of recollections and associations—a touch of varnish, so to speak. Suddenly the remembrance of some of the things which Jack Sandys had said that morning came back to him; "real things" the boy had said, so lightly and yet so decisively. He wondered; had he himself ever had any touch with realities at all? He had been touched by no adversity or tragedy, he had been devastated by no disappointed ambitions, shattered by no emotions. His whole life had been perfectly under his control, and he had grown into a sort of contempt for all unbalanced people, who were run away with by their instincts or passions. It had been a very comfortable, sheltered, happy life; he was sure of that; he had enjoyed his work, his relations with others, his friendships; but had he ever come near to any fulness of living at all? Was it not, when all was said and done, a very empty affair—void of experience, guarded from suffering? "Suffering?" he hardly knew the meaning of the word. Had he ever felt or suffered or rebelled? Yes, there was one little thing. He had had a small ambition once; he had studied comparative religion very carefully at one time to illustrate some lectures, and a great idea had flashed across him. It was a big, a fruitful thought; he had surveyed that strange province of human emotion, the deepest strain of which seemed to be a disgust for mingling with life, a loathing of bodily processes and instincts, which drove its votaries to a deliberate sexlessness, and set them at variance with the whole solid force of Nature, the treacherous and alluring devices by which she drove men to reproduction with an insatiable appetite; that mystical strain, which appeared at all times and in all places, a spiritual rebellion against material bondage, was not that the desperate cry of the fettered spirit? The conception of sin, by which Nature traversed her own activities and made them void—there was a great secret hidden here. He had determined to follow this up, and to disguise with characteristic caution and courtesy a daring speculation under the cloak of orthodox research.

He had begun his work in a great glow of enthusiasm; but it had been suspended time after time. He had sketched his theory out; but it lay there in one of his table-drawers, a skeleton not clothed with words. Why had he let this all drop? Why had he contented himself with the easy, sociable life? Effective though he was as a teacher, he had no real confidence in the things which he taught. They only seemed to him a device of reason for expending its energies, just as men deprived by complex life of manual labour sought to make up for the loss by the elaborate pursuit of games. He did not touch the springs of being at all. He had collapsed, he felt, into placid acquiescence; Nature had been too strong for him. He had fitted so easily into the pleasant scheme of things, and he was doing nothing in the world but helping to prolong the delusion, just as men set painted glass in a window to shut out the raincloud and the wind. He was a conformist, he felt, in everything—in religion, intellect, life—but a sceptic underneath. Was he not perhaps missing the whole object and aim of life and experience, in a fenced fortress of quiet? The thought stung him suddenly with a kind of remorse. He was doing no part of the world's work, not sharing its emotions or passions or pains or difficulties; he was placidly at ease in Zion, in the comfortable city whose pleasures were based on the toil of those outside. That was a hateful thought! Had not the boy been right after all? Must one not somehow link one's arm with life and share its pilgrimage, even in weariness and tears?

There came a tap at the door, and one of his shyest pupils entered—a solitary youth, poor and unfriended, who was doing all he could to get a degree good enough to launch him in the world. He came to ask some advice about work. Howard entered into his case as well as he could, told him it was important that he should get certain points clear, gave him an informal lecture, distinctly and emphatically, and made a few friendly remarks. The man beamed with unexpressed gratitude.

"What solemn nonsense I have been talking!" thought Howard to himself as the young man slipped away. "Of course he must learn all this—but what for? To get a mastership, and to retail it all over again! It's a vicious circle, this education which is in touch with nothing but the high culture of a nation which lived in ideas; while with us culture is just a plastering of rough walls—no part of the structure! Why cannot we put education in touch with life, try to show what human beings are driving at, what arrangements they are making that they may live? It is all arrangements with us—the frame for the picture, the sheath for the sword—and we leave the picture and the sword to look after themselves. What a wretched dilettante business it all is, keeping these boys practising postures in the anteroom of life! Cannot we get at the real thing, teach people to do things, fill their minds with ideas, break down the silly tradition of needless wealth and absurd success? And I must keep up all this farce, simply because I am fit for nothing else—I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed. Oh, hold your tongue, you ass!" said Howard, apostrophising his rebellious mind. "Don't you see where you are going? You can't do anything—it is all too big and strong for you. You must just let it alone."

II

RESTLESSNESS

A few days later the term drew to an end, and both dons and undergraduates, whose tempers had been wearing a little thin, got suddenly more genial, like guests when a visit draws to a close, and disposed to think rather better of each other.

Howard had made no plans; he did not wish to stay on at Cambridge, but he did not want to go away: he had no relations to whose houses he naturally drifted; he did not like the thought of a visit; as a rule he went off with an undergraduate or two to some lonely inn, where they fished or walked and did a little work. But just now he had a vague feeling that he wanted to be alone; that he had something to face, some reckoning to cast up, and yet he did not know what it was.

One afternoon—the spring was certainly advancing, and there was a touch of languor in the air, that heavenly languor which is so sweet a thing when one is young and hopeful, so depressing a thing when one is living on the edge of one's nervous force—he paid a call, which was not a thing he often did, on a middle-aged woman who passed for a sort of relation; she was a niece of his aunt's deceased husband, Monica Graves by name. She was a woman of independent means, who had done some educational work for a time, but had now retired, lived in her own little house, and occupied herself with social schemes of various sorts. She was a year or two older than Howard. They did not very often meet, but there was a pleasant camaraderie between them, an almost brotherly and sisterly relation. She was a small, quiet, able woman, whose tranquil manner concealed great clear-headedness and decisiveness. Howard always said that it was a comfort to talk to her, because she always knew what her own opinion was, and did what she intended to do. He found her alone and at tea. She welcomed him drily but warmly. Presently he said, "I want your advice, Monnie; I want you to make up my mind for me. I have a feeling that I need a change. I don't mean a little change, but a big one. I am suddenly aware that I am a little stale, and I wish to be freshened up."

Monica looked at him and said, "Yes, I expect you are right! You know I think we ought all to have one big change in our lives, about your age, I mean. Why don't you put in for a head-mastership? I have often thought you have rather a gift that way."

"I might do that," said Howard vaguely, "but I don't want a change of work so much as a change of mind. I have got suddenly bored, and I am a little vexed with myself. I have always rather held with William Morris that people ought to live in the same place and do the same things; and I had no intention of being bored—I have always thought that very feeble! But I have fallen suddenly into the frame of mind of knowing exactly what all my friends here are going to say and think, and that rather takes the edge off conversation; and I have learned the undergraduate mind too. It's an inconsequent thing, but there's a law in inconsequence, and I seem to have acquired a knowledge of their tangents."

"I must consider," said Monica with a smile, "but one can't do these things offhand—that is worse than doing nothing. I'll tell you what to do NOW. Why not go and stay with Aunt Anne? She would like to see you, I know, and I have always thought it rather lazy of you not to go there—she is rather a remarkable woman, and it's a pretty country. Have you ever been there?"

"No," said Howard, "not to Windlow; I stayed with them once when I was a boy, when Uncle John was alive—but that was at Bristol. What sort of a place is Windlow? I suppose Aunt Anne is pretty well off?"

"I'm not very good at seeing the points of a place," said Monica; "but it's a beautiful old house, though it is rather too low down for my taste; and she lives very comfortably, so I think she must be rich; I don't know about that; but she is an interesting woman—one of the few really religious people I know. I am not very religious myself, but she makes it seem rather interesting to me—she has experiences—I don't quite know what they are; but she is a sort of artist in religion, I think. That's a bad description, because it sounds self-conscious; and she isn't that—she has a sense of humour, and she doesn't rub things in. You know how if one meets a real artist in anything—a writer, a painter, a musician—and finds them at work, it seems almost the only thing worth doing. Well, Aunt Anne gives me the same sort of sense about religion when I am with her; and yet when I come away, and see how badly other people handle it, it seems a very dull business."

"That's interesting," said Howard musingly; "but I am really ashamed to suggest going there. She has asked me so often, and I have sent such idiotic excuses."

"Oh, you needn't mind that," said Monica; "she isn't a huffy person. I know she would like to see you—she said to me once that the idea of coming didn't seem to amuse you, but she seemed disposed to sympathise with you for that. Just write and say you would like to go."

"I think I will," said Howard, "and I have another reason why I should like to go. You know Jack Sandys, your cousin, now my pupil. He is rather a fascinating youth. His father is parson there, isn't he?"

"Yes," said Monica; "there are two hamlets, Windlow and Windlow Malzoy, both in the same parish. The church and vicarage are at Malzoy; but Frank is rather a terror—my word, how that man talks! But I like Jack, though I have only seen him half a dozen times—that reminds me that I must have him to dinner or something—and I like his sister even better. But I am afraid that Jack may turn out a bore too—he is rather charming at present, because he says whatever comes into his head; and it's all quite fresh; but that is what poor Cousin Frank does—only it's not at all fresh! However, there's nothing like living with a bore to teach one the merits of holding one's tongue. Poor old Frank! I thought he would be the death of us all one evening at Windlow. He simply couldn't stop, and he had a pathetic look in his eye, as if he was saying, 'Can't anyone assist me to hold my tongue?'"

Howard laughed and got up. "Well," he said, "I'll take your advice. I don't know anyone like you, Monnie, for making up one's mind. You crystallise things. I shall like to see Aunt Anne, and I shall like to see Jack at home; and meanwhile will you think the matter over, and give me a lead? I don't want to leave Cambridge at all, but I would rather do that than go sour, as some people do!"

"Yes," said Monica, "when you get beneath the surface, Cambridge is rather a sad place. There are a good many disappointed men here—people who wake up suddenly in middle life, and realise that if they had gone out into the world they would have done better; but I like Cambridge; you can do as you like here—and then the rainfall is low."

Howard went back to his rooms and wrote a short note to Mrs. Graves to suggest a visit; he added that he felt ashamed of himself for never coming, "but Monica says that you would like to see me, and Monica is generally right."

That evening Jack came in to say good-bye. He did not look forwards to the vacation at all, he said; "Windlow is simply the limit! I believe it's the dullest place in the kingdom!"

"What would you feel if I told you that we shall probably meet?" said Howard. "I am going to stay with Mrs. Graves—that is, if she will have me. I don't mind saying that the fact that you are close by is a considerable reason why I think of going."

"That's simply splendid!" said Jack; "we will have no end of a time. Do you DO anything in particular—fish, I mean, or shoot? There's some wretched fishing in the river, and there is some rabbit-shooting on the downs. Mrs. Graves has a keeper, a shabby old man who shoots, as they say, for the house. I believe she objects to shooting; but you might persuade her, and we could go out together."

"Yes," said Howard, "I do shoot and fish in a feeble way. We will see what can be done."

"There are things to see, I believe," said Jack, "churches and houses, if you like that sort of thing—I don't; but we might get up some expeditions—they are rather fun. I think you won't mind my sister. She isn't bad for a woman. But women don't understand men. They are always sympathising with you or praising you. They think that is what men like, but it only means that it is what they would like. Men like to be left alone—but I daresay she thinks I don't understand her. Then there's my father! He is quite a good sort, really; but by George, how he does talk! I often think I'd like to turn him loose in the Combination Room. No one would have a chance. Redmayne simply wouldn't be in it with my father. I've invented rather a good game when he gets off. I try to see how many I can count before I am expected to make a remark. I have never quite got up to a thousand, but once I nearly let the cat out by saying nine hundred and fifty, nine hundred and fifty-one, when my father stopped for breath. He gave me a look, I can tell you, but I don't think he saw what I was after. Maud was seized with hysterics. But he isn't a bad sort of parent, as they go; he fusses, but he lets one do as one wants. I suppose I oughtn't to give my people away; but I never can see why one shouldn't talk about one's people just as if they were anybody else. I don't think I hold things sacred, as the Dean says: 'Reticence, reticence, the true characteristic of the English gentleman and the sincere Christian!'" and Jack delivered himself of some paragraphs of the Dean's famous annual sermon to freshmen.

"It's abominable, the way you talk," said Howard; "you will corrupt my ingenuous mind. How shall I meet your father if you talk like this about him?"

"You'll have to join in my game," said Jack. "By George, what sport; we shall sit there counting away alternately, and we will have some money on the run. You have got to say all the figures quite distinctly to yourself, you know!"

Presently Jack said, "Why shouldn't we go down together? No, I suppose you would want to go first? I can't run to that. But you must come as soon as you can, and stay as long as you can. I had half promised to go and stay a week with Travers. But now I won't. By George, there isn't another don I would pay that compliment to! It would simply freeze my blood if the Master turned up there. I shouldn't dare to show my face outside the house; that man does make me sweat! The very smell of his silk gown makes me feel faint."

"I'll tell you what I will do," said Howard, "I'll give you some coaching in the mornings. If anyone ever wanted coaching, it is you!"

Jack looked rather blue at this, but he said, "It will have to be gratis, though! I haven't a cent. Besides, I am going to do better. I have a growing sense of duty!"

"It's not growing very FAST!" said Howard, "and it's a feeble motive at best, you will find; you will have to get a better reason than that—it won't carry you far. Why not do it to please me?"

"All right," said Jack; "will you scribble me a list of books to take down? I had meant to have a rest; but I would do a good deal of work to get a reasonable person down at Windlow. I simply daren't ask my friends there; my father would talk their hindlegs off but he isn't a bad old bird."

III

WINDLOW

Mrs. Graves wrote back by return of post that she was delighted to think that Howard was coming. "I am getting an old woman," she said, "and fond of memories: and what I hear of you from your enthusiastic pupil Jack makes me wish to see my nephew, and proud of him too. This is a quiet house, but I think you would enjoy it; and it's a real kindness to me to come. I am sure I shall like you, and I am not without hopes that you may like me. You need not tie yourself down to any dates; just come when you can, and go when you must."

Howard liked the simplicity of the letter, and determined to go down at once. He started two days later. It was a fine spring day, and it was pleasant to glide through the open country all quickening into green. He arrived in the afternoon at the little wayside station. It was in the south-east corner of Somersetshire, and Howard liked the look of the landscape, the steep green downs, with their wooded dingles breaking down into rich undulating plains, dappled with hedgerow trees and traversed by gliding streams. He was met at the station by an old-fashioned waggonette, with an elderly coachman, who said that Mrs. Graves had hoped to come herself, but was not very well, and thought that Mr. Kennedy would prefer an open carriage.

Howard was astonished at the charm of the whole countryside. They passed through several hamlets, with beautiful old houses, built of a soft orange stone, weathering to a silvery grey, with evidences of careful and pretty design in their mullioned windows and arched doorways. The churches, with their great richly carved towers, pierced stone shutters, and clustered pinnacles, pleased him extremely, and he liked the simple and courteous greetings of the people who passed them. He had a sense, long unfamiliar to him, as though he were somehow coming home. The road entered a green valley among the downs. To the left, an outstanding bluff was crowned with the steep turfed bastions of an ancient fort, and as they went in among the hills, the slopes grew steeper, rich with hanging woods and copses, and the edges of the high thickets were white with bleached flints. At last they passed into a hamlet with a church, and a big vicarage among shrubberies; this was Windlow Malzoy, the coachman said, and that was Mr. Sandys' house. Howard saw a girl wandering about on the lawn—Jack's sister, he supposed, but it was too far off for him to see her distinctly; five minutes later they drove into Windlow. It lay at the very bottom of the valley; a clear stream ran beneath the bridge. There were but half a dozen cottages, and just ahead of them, abutting on the road, appeared the front of a beautiful simple house of some considerable size, with a large embowered garden behind it bordering on the river; Howard was astonished to see what a large and ancient building it was. The part on the road was blank of windows, with the exception of a dignified projecting oriel; close to which was a high Tudor archway, with big oak doors standing open. There were some plants growing on the coping—snapdragon and valerian—which gave it a look of age and settled use. The carriage drove in under the arch, and a small courtyard appeared. There was a stable on the right, with a leaded cupola; the house itself was very plain and stately, with two great traceried windows which seemed to belong to a hall, and a finely carved outstanding porch. The whole was built out of the same orange stone of which the churches were built, stone-tiled, all entirely homelike and solid.

He got down at the door, which stood open. An old man-servant appeared, and he found himself in a flagged passage, with a plain wooden screen on his left, opening into the hall. It had a collegiate air which he liked. Then he was led out at the opposite end of the vestibule, the servant saying, "Mrs. Graves is in the garden, sir." He stepped out on to a lawn bordered with trees; opposite him was a stone-built Jacobean garden-house, with stone balls on the balustraded coping. Two ladies were walking on the gravel path; the older of the two, who walked with a stick, came up to him, put her hand on his shoulder, and gave him a kiss in a simple and motherly way, saying, "So here you actually are, my dear boy, and very much welcome." She then presented the other lady, a small, snub-nosed, middle-aged woman, saying, "This is Miss Merry, who lives with me, and keeps me more or less in order; she is quite excited at meeting a don; she has a respect for learning and talent, which is unhappily rare nowadays." Miss Merry shook hands as a spaniel might give its paw, and looked reverentially at Howard. His aunt put her hand through his arm, and said, "Let us walk about a little. I live by rule, you must know—that is, by Miss Merry's rule; and we shall have tea in a few minutes."

She pointed out one or two of the features of the house, and said, in answer to Howard's loudly expressed admiration, "Yes, it is a nice old house. Your uncle had a great taste for such things in days when people did not care much about them. He bought this very cheap, I believe, and was much attached to it; but he did not live long to enjoy it, you know. He died nearly thirty years ago. I meant to sell it, but somehow I did not, and now I hope to end my days here. It is not nearly as big as it looks, and a good deal of it consists of unused granaries and farm buildings. I sometimes think it is selfish of me to go on occupying it—it's a house that wants CHILDREN; but one isn't very consistent; and somehow the house is used to me, and I to it; and, after all, it is only waiting, which isn't the worst thing in the world!"

When Howard found an opportunity of scrutinising his aunt, which he did as she poured out tea, he saw a very charming old lady, who was not exactly handsome, but was fresh-coloured and silvery-haired, and had a look of the most entire tranquillity and self-possession. She looked as if she had met and faced trouble at some bygone time; there were traces of sorrow about the brow and eyes, but it was a face which seemed as if self had somehow passed out of it, and was yet strong with a peculiar kind of fearless strength. She had a lazy and contented sort of laugh, and yet gave an impression of energy, and of a very real and vivid life. Her eyes had a great softness and brilliancy, and Howard liked to feel them dwelling upon him. As they sat at tea she suddenly put her hand on his and said, "My dear boy, how you remind me of your mother! I suppose you hardly even remember her as a young woman; but though you are half hidden in that beard of yours, you are somehow just like her, and I feel as if I were in the schoolroom again at Hunsdon in the old days. No, I am not sentimental. I don't want it back again, and I don't hate the death that parts us. One can't go back, one must go forward—and, after all, hearts were made to love with, and not to break!"

They spent a quiet evening in the still house. Mrs. Graves said to Howard, "I know that men always want to go and do something mysterious after tea; but to-night you must just sit here and get used to me. You needn't be afraid of having to see too much of me. I don't appear before luncheon, and Jane looks after me; and you must get some exercise in the afternoons. I don't go further than the village. I expect you have lectures to write; and you must do exactly what you like." They sat there, in the low panelled room, and talked easily about old recollections. They dined in simple state in the big hall with its little gallery, at a round table in the centre, lighted by candles. The food was simple, the wine was good.

"Marengo chicken," said Mrs. Graves as a dish was handed round. "That's one of Jane's historical allusions. If you don't know why it is called Marengo, Jane will rejoice to enlighten you." After the meal she begged him to smoke. "I like it," said Mrs. Graves; "I have even smoked myself in seclusion, but now I dare not—it would be all over the parish to-morrow."

After dinner they went back to the drawing-room, and Miss Merry turned out to be quite a good pianist, playing some soft old music at the end of the gently lighted room. Mrs. Graves went off early. "You had better stop and smoke here," she said to Howard. "There's a library where you can work and smoke to-morrow; and now good night, and let me say how I delight to have you here—I really can't say how much!"

Howard sat alone in the drawing-room. He had an almost painful faculty of minute observation, and the storage of new impressions was a real strain to him. To-day it seemed that they had poured in upon him in a cataract, and he felt dangerously wakeful; why had he been such a fool as to have missed this beautiful house, and this home atmosphere of affection? He could not say. A stupid persistence in his own plans, he supposed. Yet this had been waiting for him, a home such as he had never owned. He thought with an almost terrified disgust of his rooms at Beaufort, as the logs burned whisperingly in the grate, and the smoke of his cigarette rose on the air. Was it not this that he had been needing all along? At last he rose, put out the candles, and made his way to the big panelled bedroom which had been given him. He lay long awake, wondering, in a luxurious repose, listening to the whisper of the breeze in the shrubberies, and the faint murmur of the water in the full-fed stream.

IV

THE POOL

Very early in the morning Howard woke to hear the faint twittering of the birds begin in bush and ivy. It was at first just a fitful, drowsy chirp, a call "are you there? are you there?" until, when all the sparrows were in full cry, a thrush struck boldly in, like a solo marching out above a humming accompaniment of strings. That was a delicious hour, when the mind, still unsated of sleep, played softly with happy, homelike thoughts. He slept again, but the sweet mood lasted; his breakfast was served to him in solitude in a little panelled parlour off the Hall; and in the fresh April morning, with the sunlight lying on the lawn and lighting up the old worn detail of the carved cornices, he recovered for a time the boyish sense of ecstasy of the first morning at home after the return from school. While he was breakfasting, a scribbled note from Jack was brought in.

"Just heard you arrived last night; it's an awful bore, but I have to go away to-day—an old engagement made, I need hardly say, FOR me and not BY me; I shall turn up to-morrow about this time. No WORK, I think. A day of calm resolution and looking forward manfully to the future! My father and sister are going to dine at the Manor to-night. I shall be awfully interested to hear what you think of them. He has been looking up some things to talk about, and I can tell you, you'll have a dose. Maud is frightened to death.—Yours
"Jack.
"P.S.—I advise you to begin COUNTING at once."

A little later, Miss Merry turned up, to ask Howard if he would care to look round the house. "Mrs. Graves would like," she said, "to show it you herself, but she is easily tired, and can't stand about much." They went round together, and Howard was surprised to find that it was not nearly as large a house as it looked. Much space was agreeably wasted in corridors and passages, and there were huge attics with great timbered supports, needed to sustain the heavy stone tiling, which had never been converted into living rooms. There was the hall, which took up a considerable part of one side; out of this, towards the road, opened the little parlour where he had breakfasted, and above it was a library full of books, with its oriel overhanging the road, and two windows looking into the garden. Then there was the big drawing-room. Upstairs there were but a half a dozen bedrooms. The offices and the servants' bedrooms were in the wing on the road. There was but little furniture in the house. Mr. Graves had had a preference for large bare rooms; and such furniture as there was, was all for use and not for ornament, so that there was a refreshing lack of any aesthetic pose about it. There were but few pictures, but most of the rooms were panelled and needed no other ornament. There was a refreshing sense of space everywhere, and Howard thought that he had never seen a house he liked so well. Miss Merry chirped away, retailing little bits of history. Howard now for the first time learned that Mr. Graves had retired early from business with a considerable fortune, and being fond of books and leisure, and rather delicate in health, had established himself in the house, which had taken his fancy. There were some fifteen hundred acres of land attached, divided up into several small farms.

Miss Merry was filled with a reverential sort of adoration of Mrs. Graves; "the most wonderful person, I assure you! I always feel she is rather thrown away in this remote place."

"But she likes it?" said Howard.

"Yes, she likes everything," said Miss Merry. "She makes everyone feel happy: she says very little, but you feel somehow that all is right if she is there. It's a great privilege, Mr. Kennedy, to be with her; I feel that more and more every day."

This artless praise pleased Howard. When he was left alone he got out his papers; but he found himself restless in a pleasant way; he strolled through the garden. It was a singular place, of great extent; the lawn was carefully kept, but behind the screen of shrubs the garden extended far up the valley beside the river in a sort of wilderness; and he could see by the clumps of trees and the grassy mounds that it must have once been a great formal pleasaunce, which had been allowed to follow its own devices; at the far end of it, beside the stream, there was a long flagged terrace, with a stone balustrade looking down upon the stream, and beyond that the woods closed in. He left the garden and followed the stream up the valley; the downs here drew in and became steeper, till he came at last to one of the most lovely places he thought he had ever set eyes upon. The stream ended suddenly in a great clear pool, among a clump of old sycamores; the water rose brimming out of the earth, and he could see the sand fountains rising and falling at the bottom of the basin; by the side of it was a broad stone seat, with carved back and ends. There was not a house in sight; beyond there was only the green valley-end running up into the down, which was here densely covered with thickets. It was perfectly still; and the only sound was the liquid springing of the water in the pool, and the birds singing in the bushes. Howard had a sudden sense that the place held a significance for him. Had he been there before, in some dream or vision? He could not tell; but it was strangely familiar to him. Even so the trees had leaned together, and the clear ripples pulsed upon the bank. Something strange and beautiful had befallen him there. What was it? The mind could not unravel the secret.

He sat there long in the sun, his eyes fixed upon the pool, in a blissful content that was beyond thought. Then he slowly retraced his steps, full of an intense inner happiness.

He found his aunt in the garden, sitting out in the sun. He bent down to kiss her, and she detained his hand for a moment. "So you are at home?" she said, "and happy?—that is what I had wished and hoped. You have been to the pool—yes, that is a lovely spot. It was that, I think, which made your uncle buy the place; he had a great love of water—and in my unhappy days here, when I had lost him, I used often to go there and wish things were otherwise. But that is all over now!"

After luncheon, Miss Merry excused herself and said she was going to the village to see a farm-labourer's wife, who had lost a child and was in great distress. "Poor soul!" said Mrs. Graves. "Give her my love, and ask her to come and see me as soon as she can." Presently as they sat together, Howard smoking, she asked him something about his work. "Will you tell me what you are doing?" she said. "I daresay I should not understand, but I like to know what people are thinking about—don't use technical terms, but just explain your idea!"

Howard was just in the frame of mind, trying to revive an old train of thought, in which it is a great help to make a statement of the range of a subject; he said so, and began to explain very simply what was in his mind, the essential unity of all religion, and his attempt to disentangle the central motive from outlying schemes and dogmas. Mrs. Graves heard him attentively, every now and then asking a question, which showed that she was following the drift of his thought.

"Ah, that's very interesting and beautiful," she said at last. "May I say that it is the one thing that attracts me, though I have never followed it philosophically. Now," she went on, "I am going to reduce it all to practical terms, and I don't want to beat about the bush—there's no need for that! I want to ask you a plain question. Have you any religion or faith of your own?"

"Ah," said Howard, "who can say? I am a conformist, certainly, because I recognise in religion a fine sobering, civilising force at work, and if one must choose one's side, I want to be on that side and not on the other. But religion seems to me in its essence a very artistic thing, a perception of effects which are hidden from many hearts and minds. When a man speaks of definite religious experience, I feel that I am in the presence of a perception of something real—as real as music and painting. But I doubt if it is a sense given to all, or indeed to many; and I don't know what it really is. And then, too, one comes across people who hold it in an ugly, or a dreary, or a combative, or a formal way; and then sometimes it seems to me almost an evil thing."

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "I understand that. May I give you an instance, and you will see if I perceive your thought. The good Vicar here, my cousin Frank, Jack's father—you will meet him to-night—is a man who holds a rigid belief, or thinks he holds it. He preaches what he calls the sinew and bone of doctrine, and he is very stern in the pulpit. He likes lecturing people in rows! But in reality he is one of the kindest and vaguest of men. He preached a stiff sermon about conversion the other day—I am pretty sure he did not understand it himself—and he disquieted one of my good maids so much that she went to him and asked what she could do to get assurance. He seems to have hummed and hawed, and then to have said that she need not trouble her head about it—that she was a good girl, and had better be content with doing her duty. He is the friendliest of men, and that is his real religion; he hasn't an idea how to apply his system, which he learned at a theological college, but he feels it his duty to preach it."

"Yes," said Howard, "that is just what I mean; but there must be some explanation for this curious outburst of forms and doctrines, so contradictory in the different sects. Something surely causes both the form of religion and the force of it?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "just as in an engine something causes both the steam and the piston-rod; it's an intelligence somewhere that fits the one to the other. But then, as you say, what is the cause of all this extravagance and violence of expression?"

"That is the human element," said Howard—"the cautious, conservative, business-like side that can't bear to let anything go. All religion begins, it seems to me, by an outburst of moral force, an attempt to simplify, to get a principle; and then the people who don't understand it begin to make it technical and defined; uncritical minds begin to attribute all sorts of vague wonders to it—things unattested, natural exaggerations, excited statements, impossible claims; and then these take traditional shape and the poor steed gets hung with all sorts of incongruous burdens."

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "but the force is there all the time; the old hard words, like regeneration and atonement, do not mean DEFINITE things—that is the mischief; they are the receipts made up by stupid, hard-headed people who do not understand; but they stand for large and wonderful experiences and are like the language of children telling their dreams. The moral genius who sees through it all and gives the first impulse is trying to deal with life directly and frankly; and the difficulty arises from people who see the attendant circumstances and mistake them for the causes. But I do not see it from that side, of course! I understand what you are aiming at. You are trying to disentangle all the phenomena, are you not, and referring them to their real causes, instead of lumping them all together as the phenomena of religion?"

"Yes," said Howard, "that is what I am doing. I suppose I am naturally sceptical; but I want to put aside all that stands on insecure evidence, and all the sham terminology that comes from a muddled delight in the supernatural. I want to give up and clear away all that is not certain—material things must be brought to the test of material laws—and to see what is left."

"Well," said Mrs. Graves, "now I will tell you my own very simple experience. I began, I think, with a very formal religion, and I tried in my youth to attach what was really instinctive to religious motives. It got me into a sad mess, because I did not dare to go direct to life. I used to fret because your uncle seemed so indifferent to these things. He was a wise and good man, and lived by a sort of inner beauty of character that made all mean cruel spiteful petty things impossible to him. Then when he died, I had a terrible time to go through. I felt utterly adrift. My old system did not give me the smallest help. I was trying to find an intellectual solution. It was then that I met Miss Gordon, the great evangelist. She saw I was unhappy, and she said to me one day: 'You have no business to be unhappy like this. What you want is STRENGTH, and it is there all the time waiting for you! You are arguing your case with God, complaining of the injustice you have received, trying to excuse yourself, trying to find cause to blame Him. Your life has been broken to pieces, and you are trying to shelter yourself among the fragments. You must cast them all away, and thank God for having pierced through the fortress in which you were imprisoned. You must just go straight to Him, and open your heart, as if you were opening a window to the sun and air.' She did not explain, or try to give me formulas or phrases, she simply showed me the light breaking round me.

"It came to me quite suddenly one morning in my room upstairs. I was very miserable indeed, missing my dear husband at every turn, quite unable to face life, shuddering and shrinking through the days. I threw it all aside, and spoke to God Himself. I said, 'You made me, You put me here, You sent me love, You sent me prosperity. I have cared for the wrong things, I have loved in the wrong way. Now I throw everything else aside, and claim strength and light. I will sorrow no more and desire no more; I will take every day just what You send me, I will say and do what You bid me. I will make no pretences and no complaints. Do with me what You will.'

"I cannot tell you what happened to me, but a great tide of strength and even joy flowed into my whole being; it was the water of life, clear as crystal; and yet it was myself all the time! I was not different, but I was one with something pure and wise and loving and eternal.

"That has never left me. You will ask why I have not done more, bestirred myself more; because that is just what one cannot do. All that matters nothing. The activities which one makes for oneself, they are the delusions which hide God from us. One must not strive or rebuke or arrange; one must simply love and be. Let me tell you one thing. I was haunted all my early life with a fear of death. I liked life so well, every moment of it, every incident, that I could not bear to think it should ever cease; now, though I shrink from pain as much as ever, I have no shrinking whatever from death. It is the perfectly natural and simple change, and one is with God there as here. The soul and God—those are the two imperishable things; one has not either to know or to act—one has only to feel."

She ceased speaking, and sat for a moment upright in her chair. Then she went on. "Now the moment I saw you, my dear boy, I loved you—indeed I have always loved you, I think, and I have always felt that some day in His good time God would bring us together. But I see too that you have not found the strength of God. You are not at peace. Your life is full and active and kind; you are faithful and pure; but your self is still unbroken, like a crystal wall all round you. I think you will have to suffer; but you will believe, will you not, that you have not seen a half of the wonder of life? You are full of happy experience, but you have begun to feel the larger need. And I knew that when you began to feel that need, you would be brought to me, not to be given it, but to be shown it. That is all I can say to you now, but you will know the fulness of life. It is not experience, action, curiosity, ambition, desire, as many think, that is fulness of life; those are delusions, things through which the soul has to pass, just that it may learn not to rest in them. The fulness of life is the stillest, quietest, inner joy, which nothing can trouble or shadow; love is a part of it, but not quite all—for there is a shadow even in love; and this is the larger peace."

Howard sat amazed at the fire and glow of the words that came to him. He did not fully understand all that was said, but he had a sense of being brought into touch with a very tremendous and overwhelming force indeed. But he could not for the moment revise his impressions; he only perceived that he had come unexpectedly upon a calm and radiating centre of energy, and it seemed in his mind that the pool which he had seen that morning was an allegory of what he had now heard. The living water, breaking up so clearly from underground in the grassy valley, and passing downwards to gladden the earth! It would be used, be tainted, be troubled, but he saw that no soil or stain, no scattering or disruption, could ever really intrude itself into that elemental purity. The stream would reunite itself, the impregnable atom would let the staining substance fall unheeded. He would have to consider all that, scrutinise his life in a new light. He felt that he had been living on the surface of things, relying on impression, living in impression, missing the strong central current all the time. He rose, and taking his aunt's hand, kissed her cheek.

"Those are my thanks!" he said smiling. "I can't express my gratitude, but you have given me so much to think about and to ponder over that I can say no more now. I do indeed feel that I have missed what is perhaps the greatest thing in the world. But I ask myself, Can I attain to this, is it for me? Am I not condemned by temperament to live in the surface-values?"

"No, dear child," said Mrs. Graves, looking at him, so that for an instant he felt like a child indeed at a mother's knee; "we all come home thus, sooner or later; and the time has come for you. I knew it the moment I opened your letter. He is at the gate, I said, and I may have the joy of being beside him when the door is opened."

V

ON THE DOWN

Howard was very singularly impressed by this talk. It seemed to him, not certainly indeed, but possibly, that he had stumbled, almost as it were by accident, upon a great current of force and emotion running vehemently through the world, under the calm surface of things. How many apparently unaccountable events it might explain! one saw frail people doing fine things, sensitive people bearing burdens of ill-health or disappointment, placidly and even contentedly, men making gallant, unexpected choices, big expansive natures doing dull work and living cheerfully under cramped conditions. He had never troubled to explain such phenomena, beyond thinking that for some reason such a course of action pleased and satisfied people. Of course everyone did not hide the struggle; there were men he knew who had a grievance against the world, for ever parading a valuation of themselves with which no one concurred. But there were many people who had the material for far worse grievances, who never seemed to nourish them. Had they fought in secret and prevailed? Had they been floated into some moving current of strength by a rising tide? Were they, like the man in the Gospel, conscious of a treasure hidden in a field which made all other prizes tame by comparison? Was the Gospel in fact perhaps aiming at that—the pearl of price? To be born again—was that what had happened? The thought cast a light upon his own serene life, and showed him that it was essentially a pagan sort of life, temperate perhaps and refined, but still unlit by any secret fire. It was not that his life was wrong, or that an abjuration was needed; it was still to be lived, and lived more intently, but no longer merely self-propelled. . . .

He needed to be alone, to consider, to focus his thought; he went off for a walk by himself among the hills, past the spring, up the valley, till he came to a place where the down ran out into the plain, the bluff crowned with a great earthwork. An enormous view lay spread out before him. To left and right the smooth elbows of the uplands ran down into the plain, their skirts clothed with climbing woods and orchards, hamlets half-hidden, with the smoke going up from their chimneys; further out the cultivated plain rose and fell, field beyond field, wood beyond wood, merging at last in a belt of deep rich colour, and beyond that, blue hills of hope and desire, and a pale gleam of sea beyond all. The westering sun filled the air with a golden haze, and enriched the land with soft rich shadows. There was life spread out before him, just so and not otherwise, life organised and constructed into toil and a certain order, out of what dim concourse and strife! For whatever reason, it was there to be lived; one could not change the conditions of it, the sun and the rain, the winter and the spring; but behind all that definite set of forces, was there perhaps a stronger and larger force still, a brimming tide of energy, that clasped life close and loved it, and yet regarded something through it and beyond it that was not yet? His heart seemed full of a great longing, not to avoid life, but to return and live it in a larger way, at once more engaged in it, and more detached from it, each quality ministering to the other. It seemed to him that afternoon that there was something awaiting him greater than anything which had yet befallen him—an open door, through which he might pass to see strange things.

VI

THE HOME CIRCLE

He returned somewhat late, to find tea over and Mrs. Graves gone to her room; but there was tea waiting for him in the library; he went there, and for a while turned over his book, which seemed to him now to be illumined with a new light. It was this that he had been looking for, this gift of power; it was that which lay behind his speculations; he had suspected it, inferred it, but not perceived it; he saw now whither his thought had been conducting him, and why he had flagged in the pursuit.

He went up to dress for dinner, and came down as soon as the bell rang. He found that Jack's father and sister had arrived. He went into the dimly lighted room. Mr. Sandys, a fine-looking robust man, clean-shaven, curly-haired, carefully and clerically dressed, was standing by Mrs. Graves; he came forward and shook hands. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Kennedy," he said, "though indeed I seem to know a great deal about you from Jack. You are quite a hero of his, you know, and I want to thank you for all your kindness to him. I am looking forward to having a good talk with you about his future. By the way, here is my daughter, Maud, who is quite as anxious to see you as I am." A figure sitting in a corner, talking to Miss Merry, rose up, came forward into the light, and held out her hand with rather a shy smile.

Howard was amazed at what he saw. Maud had an extraordinary likeness to her brother, but with what a difference! Howard saw in an instant what it was that had haunted him in the aspect of Jack. This was what he seemed to have discerned all the time, and what had been baffling him. He knew that she was nineteen, but she looked younger. She was not, he thought, exactly beautiful—but how much more than beautiful; she was very finely and delicately made, and moved with an extraordinary grace; pale and fair, but with a look of perfect health; her features were very small, and softly rather than finely moulded; she had the air of some flower—a lily he thought—which was emphasised by her simple white dress. The under-lip was a little drawn in, which gave the least touch of melancholy to the face; but she had clear blue trustful eyes, the expression of which moved him in a very singular manner, because they seemed to offer a sweet and frank confidence. Her self-possession gave the least little sense of effort. He took the small firm and delicate hand in his, and was conscious of something strong and resolute in the grasp of the tiny fingers. She murmured something about Jack being so sorry to be away; and Howard to recover himself said: "Yes, he wrote to me to explain—we are going to do some work together, I believe."

"Yes, it's most kind of you," said Mr. Sandys, putting his arm within his daughter's with a pleasant air of fatherliness. "I am afraid industry isn't Jack's strong point? Of course I am anxious about his future—you must be used to that sort of thing! but we will defer all this until after dinner, when Mrs. Graves will allow us to have a good talk."

"We will see," said Mrs. Graves, rising; "Howard is here for a holiday, you know. Howard, will you lead the way; you don't know how my ceremonial soul enjoys having a real host to preside!"

Maud took Howard's arm, and the touch gave him a quite unreasonable thrill of pleasure; but he felt too quite insupportably elderly. What could he find to talk to this enchanting child about? He wished he had learned more about her tastes and ideas. Was this the creature of whom Jack had talked so patronisingly? He felt almost angry with his absent pupil for not having prepared him for what he would meet.

As soon as they were seated Mr. Sandys launched into the talk, like an eagle dallying with the wind. He struck Howard as an extremely good-natured, sensible, buoyant man, with a perpetual flow of healthy interests. Nothing that he said had the slightest distinction, and his power of expression was quite unequal to the evident vividness of his impressions. He had a taste for antithesis, but no grasp of synonyms. Every idea in Mr. Sandys' mind fell into halves, but the second clause was produced, not to express any new thought, but rather to echo the previous clause. He began at once on University topics. He had himself been a Pembroke man, and it had cost him an effort, he said, to send Jack elsewhere. "I don't take quite the orthodox view of education," he said, "in fact I am decidedly heterodox about its aims and the object that it has. It ought not to fall behind its object, and all this specialisation seems to me to be dangerous, and in fact decidedly perilous. My own education was on the old classical lines—an excellent gymnastic, I think, and distinctly fortifying. The old masterpieces, you know, Thucydides and so forth—they should be the basis—the foundation so to speak. But we must not forget the superstructure, the house of thought, if I may use the expression. You must forgive my ventilating these crude ideas, Mr. Kennedy. I went in myself, after taking my degree, for a course of general reading. Goethe and Schiller, you know. Yes, how fine that all is, though I sometimes feel it is a little Teutonic? One needs to correct the Teutonic bias, and it is just there that the gymnastic of the classics comes in; it gives one a standard—a criterion in fact. One must have a criterion, mustn't one, or it is all loose, and indeed, so to speak, illusive? I am all for formative education; and it is there that women—I speak frankly in the presence of three intelligent women—it is there that they suffer. Their education is not formative enough—not formal enough, in fact! Now, I have tried with dear Maud to communicate just that touch of formality. You would be surprised, Mr. Kennedy, to know what Maud has read under my guidance. Not learned, you know—I don't care for that—but with a standard, or if I may revert to my former expression, a criterion."

He paused for a moment, saw that he was belated, and finished his soup hastily.

"Yes," said Howard, "of course that is the real problem of education—to give a standard, and not to extinguish the taste for intellectual things, which is too often what we contrive to do."

"Now we must not be too serious all at once," said Mrs. Graves. "If we exhaust ourselves about education, we shall have nothing to fall back upon—we shall be afraid to condescend. I am deplorably ill-educated myself. I have no standard whatever. I have to consult dear Jane, have I not? Jane is my intellectual touchstone, and saves me from entire collapse."

"Well, well," said Mr. Sandys good-humouredly, "Mr. Kennedy and I will fight it out together sometime. He will forgive an old Pembroke man for wanting to know what is going forward; for scenting the battle afar off, in fact."

Mr. Sandys found no lack of subjects to descant upon; but voluble, and indeed absurd as he was, Howard could not help liking him; he was a good fellow, he could see, and managed to diffuse a geniality over the scene. "I am interested in most things," he said, at the end of a breathless harangue, "and there is something in the presence of a real live student, from the forefront of the intellectual battle, which rouses all my old activities—stimulates them, in fact. This will be a memorable evening for me, Mr. Kennedy, and I have abundance of things to ask you." He did indeed ask a good many things, but he was content to answer them himself. Once indeed, in the course of an immense tirade, in which Mr. Sandys' intellectual curiosity took a series of ever-widening sweeps, Howard caught his neighbour regarding him with a half-amused look, and became aware that she was wondering if he were playing Jack's game. Their eyes met, and he knew that she knew that he knew. He smiled and shook his head. She gave him a delighted little smile, and Howard had that touch of absurd ecstasy, which visits men no longer young, when they find themselves still in the friendly camp of the young, and not in the hostile camp of the middle-aged.

Presently he said to her something about Jack, and how much he enjoyed seeing him at Cambridge. "He is really rather a wonderful person," he added. "There isn't anyone at Beaufort who has such a perfectly defined relation to everyone in the college, from the master down to the kitchen-boys. He talks to everyone without any embarrassment, and yet no one really knows what he is thinking! He is very deep, really, and I think he has a fine future before him."

Maud lighted up at this, and said: "Do you really think so?" and added, "You know how much he admires you?"

"I am glad to be assured of it," said Howard; "you would hardly guess it from some of the things he says to me. It's awful, but he can't be checked—and yet he never oversteps the line, somehow."

"He's a queer boy," said Maud. "The way he talked to the Archdeacon the other day was simply fearful; but the Archdeacon only laughed, and said to papa afterwards that he envied him his son. The Archdeacon was giggling half the afternoon; he felt quite youthful, he said."

"It's the greatest gift to be able to do that," said Howard; "it's a sort of fairy wand—the pumpkin becomes a coach and four."

"Jack's right ear must be burning, I think," said Maud, "and yet he never seems to want to know what anyone thinks about him."

That was all the talk that Howard had with her at dinner. After the ladies had gone, Mr. Sandys became very confidential about Jack's prospects.

"I look upon you as a sort of relation, you see," he said, "in fact I shall make bold to drop the Mr. and I hope you will do the same? May we indeed take a bold step into intimacy and be 'Howard' and 'Frank' henceforth? I can't, of course, leave Jack a fortune, but when I die the two dear children will be pretty well off—I may say that. What do you think he had better go in for? I should like him to take holy orders, but I don't press it. It brings one into touch with human beings, and I like that. I find human beings very interesting—I am not afraid of responsibility."

Howard said that he did not think Jack inclined to orders.

"Then I put that aside," cried the good-natured Mr. Sandys. "No compulsion for me—the children may do as they like, live as they like, marry whom they like. I don't believe in checking human nature. Of course if Jack could get a Fellowship, I should like him to settle down at Cambridge. There's a life for you! In the forefront of the intellectual battle! It is what I should have liked myself, of all things. To hear what is going on in the intellectual line, to ventilate ideas, to write, to teach—that's a fine life—to be able to hold one's own in talk and discussion—that's where we country people fail. I have plenty of ideas, you know, myself, but I can't put them into shape, into form, so to speak."

"I think Jack would rather like a commercial career," said Howard. "It's the only thing he has ever mentioned; and I am sure he might do well if he could get an opening; he likes real things, he says."

"He does!" said Mr. Sandys enthusiastically—"that's what he always says. Do you know, if you won't think me very vain, Howard, I believe he gets that from me. Maud is different—she takes after her dear mother—whose loss was so irreparable a calamity—my dear wife was full of imagination; it was a beautiful mind. I will show you some of her sketches when you come to see us—I am looking forward to that—not much technique, perhaps, but a real instinct for beauty; to be just, a little lacking in form, but full of feeling. Well, Jack, as I was saying, likes reality. So do I! A firm hold on reality—that's the best thing; I was not intellectual enough for the life of thought, and I fell back on humanity—vastly engrossing! I assure you, though you would hardly think it, that even these simple people down here are most interesting: no two of them alike. My old friends say to me sometimes that I must find country people very dull, but I always say, 'No two of them alike!' Of course I try to keep my intellectual tastes alive—they are only tastes, of course, not faculties, like yours—but we read and talk and ventilate our ideas, Maud and I; and when we are tired of books, why I fall back on the great book of humanity. We don't stagnate—at least I hope not—I have a horror of stagnation. I said so to the Archdeacon the other day, and he said that there was nothing stagnant about Windlow."

"No, I am quite sure there is not," said Howard politely.

"It's very good of you to say so, Howard," said Mr. Sandys delightedly. "Really quite a compliment! And I assure you, you don't know what a pleasure it is to have a talk like this with a man like yourself, so well-read, so full of ideas. I envy Jack his privileges. I do indeed. Now dear old Pembroke was not like that in my days. There was no one I could talk to, as Jack tells me he talks to you. A man like yourself is a vast improvement on the old type of don, if I may say so. I'm very free, you see! And so you think Jack might do well in commerce? Well, I quite approve. All I want is that he should not be out of touch with human beings. I'm not a metaphysician, but it seems to me that that is what we are here for—touch with humanity—of course on Church of England lines. I'm tolerant, I hope, and can see the good side of other creeds; but give me something comprehensive, and that is the glory of our English Church. Well, you have given me a lot to think of, Howard; I must just take it all away and think it over. It's well to do that, I think? Not to be in a hurry, try to see all round a question? That is my line always!"

They walked into the drawing-room together; and Howard felt curiously drawn to the warm-hearted and voluble man. Perhaps it was for the sake of his children, he thought. There must be something fine about a man who had brought up two such children—but that was not all; the Vicar was enthusiastic; he revelled in life, he adored life; and Howard felt that there was a real fund of sense and even judgment somewhere, behind the spray of the cataract. He was a man whom one could trust, he believed, and whom it was impossible not to like.

When they reached the drawing-room, Mrs. Graves called the Vicar into a corner, and began to talk to him about someone in the village; Howard heard his talk plunge steadily into the silence. Miss Merry flitted about, played a few pieces of music; and Howard found himself left to Maud. He went and sate down beside her. In the dim light the girl sate forward in a big arm-chair; there was nothing languorous or listless about her. She seemed all alert in a quiet way. She greeted him with a smile, and sate turned towards him, her chin on her hand, her eyes upon him. Her shining hair fell over the curves of her young and pure neck. She was holding a flower, which Mrs. Graves had given her, in her other hand, and its fragrance exhaled all about her. Once or twice she checked him with a little gesture of her hand, when Miss Merry began to play, and he could see that she was much affected by the music.

"It seems to me so wrong to talk during music," she said; "perhaps it wasn't polite of me to stop you, but I can't bear to interrupt music—it's like treading on flowers—it can't come again just like that!"

"Yes," said Howard, "I know exactly what you mean; but I expect it is a mistake to think of a beautiful thing being wasted, if we don't happen to hear or see it. It isn't only meant for us. It is the light or the sound or the flower, I think, being beautiful because it is glad."

"Yes," said the girl, "perhaps it is that. That is what Mrs. Graves thinks. Do you know, it seems to me strange that you have never been here before, though you are almost her only relation. She is the most wonderful person I have ever seen. The only person I know who seems always right, and yet never wants anyone else to know she is right."

"Yes," said Howard, "I feel that I have been very foolish—but it has been going on all the time, like the music and the light. It hasn't been wasted. I have had a wonderful talk with her to-day—the most wonderful talk, I think, I have ever had. I can't understand it all yet—but she has given me the sense of some fine purpose—as if I had been kept away for a purpose, because I was not ready; and as if I had come here for a purpose now."

The girl sate looking at him with open eyes, and with some strange sense of surprise. "Yes," she said, "it is just like that; but that you could have seen it so soon amazes me. I have known her all my life, and could never have put that into words. Do you know how things seem to come and go and shift about without any meaning? It is never so with her; she sees what it all means. I cannot explain it."

They sate in silence for a moment, and then Howard said: "It is very curious to be here; you know, or probably you don't know, how much interested I am in Jack; and somehow in talking to him I felt that there was something behind—something more to know. All this"—he waved his hand at the room—"my aunt, your father, yourself—it does not seem to me new and unfamiliar, but something which I have always known. I can't tell you in what a dream I have seemed to be moving ever since I came here. I have been here for twenty-four hours, and yet it seems all old and dear to me."

"I know that feeling," said the girl, "one dips into something that has been going on for ever and ever—I feel like that to-night. It seems odd to talk like this, but you must remember that Jack tells me most things, and I seem to know you quite well. I knew it would be all easy somehow."

"Well, we are a sort of cousins," said Howard lightly. "That's such a comfort; it needn't entail anything, but it can save one all sorts of fencing and ceremony. I want to talk to you about Jack. He is a little mysterious to me still."

"Yes," she said, "he is mysterious, but he really is a dear: he was the most aggravating boy that ever lived, and I sometimes used really to hate him. I am afraid we used to fight a great deal; at least I did, but I suppose he was only pretending, for he never hurt me, and I know I used to hurt him—but then he deserved it!"

"What a picture!" said Howard, smiling; "no wonder that boys go to their private schools expecting to have to fight for their lives. I never had a sister; and that accounts perhaps for my peaceful disposition." He had a sudden sense as he spoke that he was talking as if to an undergraduate in friendly irony. To his surprise and pleasure he saw that his thought had translated itself.

"I suppose that is how you talk to your pupils," said the girl, smiling; "I recognise that—and that's what makes it easy to talk to you as Jack does—it's like an easy serve at lawn-tennis."

"I am glad it is easy," said Howard, "you don't know how many of my serves go into the net!"

"Lawn-tennis!" said Mr. Sandys from the other side of the room. "There's a good game, Howard! I am not much of a hand at it myself, but I enjoy playing. I don't mind making a spectacle of myself. One misses many good things by being afraid of looking a fool. What does it matter, I say to myself, as long as one doesn't FEEL a fool? You will come and play at the vicarage, I hope. Indeed, I want you to go and come just as you like. We are relations, you know, in a sort of way—at least connections. I don't know if you go in for genealogy—it's rather a hobby of mine; it fills up little bits of time, you know. I could reel you off quite a list of names, but Mrs. Graves doesn't care for genealogy, I know."

"Oh, not that!" said Mrs. Graves. "I think it is very interesting. But I rather agree with the minister who advised his flock to pray for good ancestors."

"Ha! ha!" said Mr. Sandys, "excellent, that; but it is really very curious you know, that the further one goes back the more one's ancestors increase. Talk of over-population; why if one goes back thirty or forty generations, the world would be over-populated with the ancestors of any one of us. I remember posing a very clever mathematician with that once; but, as a fact, it's quite the reverse, one finds. Are you interested in neolithic men, Howard? There are graves of them all over the down—it is not certain if they were neolithic, but they had very curious burial customs. Knees up to the chin, you know. Well, well, it's all very fascinating, and I should like to drive you over to Dorchester to look at the museum there—there are some questions I should like to ask you. But we must be off. A delightful evening, cousin Anne; a delightful evening, Howard. I feel quite rejuvenated—such a lot to ponder over."

Howard went to the door to see them off, and was rewarded by a parting smile from Maud, which made him feel curiously elated. He went back to the drawing-room with that faint feeling of flatness which comes of parting with lively guests; and yet it somehow gave him a pleasant sense of being at home.

"Well," said Mrs. Graves, "so now you have seen the Sandys interior. Dear Frank, how he does chatter, to be sure! but he is all alive too in his own way, and that is what matters. What did you think of Maud? I want you to like her—she is a great friend of mine, and really a fine creature. Not very happy just now, perhaps. But while dear old Frank never sees past the outside of things—what a lot of things he does see!—she sees inside, I think. But I am tired to death. I always feel after talking to Frank as if I had been driving in a dog-cart over a ploughed field!"

VII

COUNTRY LIFE

Howard woke early, after sweet and wild dreams of great landscapes and rich adventures; as his thoughts took shape, he began to feel as if he had passed some boundary yesterday; escaped, as a child escapes from a familiar garden into great vague woodlands. There was his talk with Mrs. Graves first—that had opened up for him a new region, indeed, of the mind and soul, and had revealed to him an old force, perhaps long within his grasp, but which he had never tried to use or wield. And the vision too of Maud crossed his mind—a perfectly beautiful thing, which had risen like a star. He did not think of it as love at all—that did not cross his mind—it was just the thought of something enchantingly and exquisitely beautiful, which disturbed him, awed him, threw his mind off its habitual track. How extraordinarily lovely, simple, sweet, the girl had seemed to him in the dim room, in the faint light; and how fearless and frank she had been! He was conscious only of something adorable, which raised, as beautiful things did, a sense of something unapproachable, some yearning which could not be satisfied. How far away, how faded and dusty his ordinary contented Cambridge life now seemed to him!

He breakfasted alone, read a few letters which had been forwarded to him, and went to the library. A few minutes later Miss Merry tapped at the door, and came in.

"Mrs. Graves asked me to say—she was sorry she forgot to mention it—that if you care for shooting or fishing, the keeper will come in and take your orders. She thinks you might like to ask Jack to luncheon and go out with him; she sends you her love, and wants you to do what you like."

"Thank you very much!" said Howard, "I rather expect Jack will be round here and I will ask him. I know he would like it, and I should too—if you are sure Mrs. Graves approves."

"Oh, yes," said Miss Merry, smiling, "she always approves of people doing what they like."

Miss Merry still hesitated at the door. "May I ask you another question, Mr. Kennedy—I hope I am not troublesome—I wonder if you could suggest some books for us to read? I read a good deal to Mrs. Graves, and I am afraid we get rather into a groove. We ought to read some of the new books; we want to know what people are saying and thinking—we don't want to get behind."

"Why, of course," said Howard, "I shall be delighted—but I am afraid I am not likely to be of much use; I don't read as much as I ought; but if you will tell me the sort of things you care about, and what you have been reading, we will try to make out a list. Won't you sit down and see what we can do?"

"Oh, I don't like to interrupt you," said Miss Merry. "But if you would be so kind."

She sat down at the far end of the table, and Howard was dimly and amusedly conscious that this tete-a-tete was of the nature of a romantic adventure to the little lady. He was surprised, when they came to talk, to find how much they appeared to have read of a solid kind. He asked if they had any plan.

"No, indeed," said Miss Merry, "we just wander on; one thing suggests another. Mrs. Graves likes LONG books; she says she likes to get at a subject quietly—that there ought not to be too many good things in books; she likes them slow and spacious."

"I am afraid one has to go back a good way for that!" said Howard. "People can't afford now to know more than a manual of a couple of hundred pages can tell them about a subject. I can tell you some good historical books, and some books of literary criticism and biography. I can't do much about poetry or novels; and philosophy, science, and theology I am no use at all for. But I could get you some advice if you like. That's the best of Cambridge, there are so many people about who are able to tell what to read."

While they were making out a list, Jack arrived breathlessly, and Miss Merry shamefacedly withdrew. Howard said: "Perhaps that will do to go on with—we will have another talk to-morrow. I begin to see the sort of thing you want."

Jack was in a state of high excitement.

"What on earth were you doing," he said, as the door closed, "with that sedate spinster?"

"We were making out a list of books!"

"Ah," said Jack with a profound air, "books are dangerous things—that's the intellectual way of making love! You must be a great excitement here, with all your ideas!—but now," he went on, "here I am—I hurried back the moment breakfast was over. I have been horribly bored—a lawn-tennis party yesterday, the females much to the fore—it's no good that, it's not the game; at least it's not lawn-tennis; it's a game all right, but I much suspect it has to do with love-making rather than exercise."

"You seem very suspicious this morning," said Howard; "you accuse me of flirting to begin with, and now you suspect lawn-tennis."

Jack shook his head. "I do hate love-making!" he said, "it spoils everything—it gets in the way, and makes fools of people; the longer I live, the more I see that most of the things that people do are excuses for doing something else! But never mind that! I said I had got to get back to be coached; I said that one of our dons was staying in the village and had his eye on me. What I want to know is whether you have made any arrangements about shooting or fishing? You said you would if you could."

"The keeper is coming in," said Howard, "and we will have a talk to him; but mind, on one condition—work in the morning, exercise in the afternoon; and you are to stop to lunch."

"Cousin Anne is bursting into hospitality," said Jack, "because Maud is coming in for the afternoon. I haven't had time to pump Maud yet about you, but, by George, I'm going to pump you about her and father. Did you have a very thick time last night? I could see father was rather licking his lips."

"Now, no more chatter," said Howard; "you go and get some books, and we will set to work at once." Jack nodded and fled.

When he came back the keeper was waiting, a friendly old man, who seemed delighted at the idea of some sport. Jack said, "Look here, I have arranged it all. Shooting to-day, and you can have father's gun; he hardly ever uses it, and I have my own. Fishing to-morrow, and so on alternately. There are heaps of rabbits up the valley—the place crawls with them."

Howard taught Jack for an hour, as clearly and briskly as he could, making him take notes. He found him quick and apt, and at the end, Jack said, "Now if I could only do this every day at Cambridge, I should soon get on. My word, you do do it well! It makes me shudder to think of all the practice you must have had."

Howard set Jack down to prepare some further work by himself, and attacked his own papers; and very soon it was time for lunch.

Mrs. Graves greeted Jack with much affectionateness, and asked what they had arranged for the afternoon. Howard told her, and added that he hoped she did not object to shooting.

"No, not at all," said Mrs. Graves, "if YOU can do it conscientiously—I couldn't! As usual I am hopelessly inconsistent. I couldn't kill things myself, but as long as I eat meat, I can't object. It's no good arguing about these things. If one begins to argue about destroying life, there are such excellent reasons for not eating anything, or wearing anything, or even crossing the lawn! I have long believed that plants are conscious, but we have got to exist somehow at each other's expense. Instinct is the only guide for women; if they begin to reason, they get run away with by reason; that is what makes fanatics. I won't go so far as to wish you good sport, but you may as well get all the rabbits you can; I'll send them round the village, and try to salve my conscience so."

They talked a little about the books Howard had been recommending, but Mrs. Graves was bent on making much of Jack.

"I don't get you here often by yourself," she said. "I daren't ask a modern young man to come and see two old frumps—one old frump, I mean! But I gather that you have views of your own, Jack, and some day I shall try to get at them. I suppose that in a small place like this we all know a great deal more about each other than we suspect each other of knowing. What a comfort that we have tongues that we can hold! It wouldn't be possible to live, if we knew that all the absurdities we pride ourselves on concealing were all perfectly well known and canvassed by all our friends. However, as long as we only enjoy each other's faults, and don't go in for correcting them, we can get on. I hope you don't DISAPPROVE of people, Jack! That's the hopeless attitude."

"Well, I hate some people," said Jack, "but I hate them so much that it is quite a pleasure to meet them and to think how infernal they are; and when it's like that, I should be sorry if they improved."

"I won't go as far as that," said Howard. "The most I do is to be thankful that their lack of improvement can still entertain me. One can never be thankful enough for really grotesque people. But I confess I don't enjoy seeing people spiteful and mean and vicious. I want to obliterate all that."

"I want it to be obliterated," said Mrs. Graves; "but I don't feel equal to doing it. Oh, well, we mustn't get solemn over it; that's the mischief! But I mustn't keep you gentlemen from more serious pursuits—'real things,' I believe, Jack?"

"Mr. Kennedy has been sneaking on me," said Jack. "I don't like to see people mean and spiteful. It gives me pain. I want all that obliterated."

"This is what happens to my pupils," said Howard. "Come on, Jack, you shall not expose my methods like this."

They went off with the old keeper, who carried a bag of writhing ferrets, and was accompanied by a boy with a spade and a line and a bag of cartridges. As they went on, Jack catechised Howard closely.

"Did my family behave themselves?" he said. "Did you want them obliterated? I expect you had a good pull at the Governor, but don't forget he is a good chap. He is so dreadfully interested, but you come to plenty of sense last of all. I admit it is last, but it's there. It's no joke facing him if there's a row! he doesn't say much then, and that makes it awful. He has a way of looking out of the window, if I cheek him, for about five minutes, which turns me sick. Up on the top he is a bit frothy—but there's no harm in that, and he keeps things going."

"Yes," said Howard, "I felt that, and I may tell you plainly I liked him very much, and thought him a thoroughly good sort."

"Well, what about Maud?" said Jack.

Howard felt a tremor. He did not want to talk about Maud, and he did not want Jack to talk about her. It seemed like laying hands on something sacred and secluded. So he said, "Really, I don't know as yet—I only had one talk with her. I can't tell. I thought her delightful; like you with your impudence left out."

"The little cat!" said Jack; "she is as impudent as they make them. I'll be bound she has taken the length of your foot. What did she talk about? stars and flowers? That's one of her dodges."

"I decline to answer," said Howard; "and I won't have you spoiling my impressions. Just leave me alone to make up my mind, will you?"

Jack looked at him,—he had spoken sharply—nodded, and said, "All right! I won't give her away. I see you are lost; but I'll get it all out of you some time."

They were by this time some way up the valley. There were rabbit burrows everywhere among the thickets. The ferrets were put in. Howard and Jack were posted below, and the shooting began. The rabbits bolted well, and Howard experienced a lively satisfaction, quite out of proportion, he felt, to the circumstances, at finding that he could shoot a great deal better than his pupil. The old knack came back to him, and he toppled over his rabbits cleanly and in a masterly way.

"You are rather good at this!" said Jack. "Won't I blazon it abroad up at Beaufort. You shall have all the credit and more. I can't see how you always manage to get them in the head."

"It's a trick," said Howard; "you have got to get a particular swing, and when you have got it, it's difficult to miss—it's only practice; and I shot a good deal at one time."

Howard was unreasonably happy that afternoon. It was a still, sunny day, and the steep down stretched away above them, an ancient English woodland, with all its thorn-thickets and elder-clumps. It had been like this, he thought, from the beginning of history, never touched by the hand of man. The expectant waiting, the quick aim, the sudden shot, took off the restlessness of his brain; and as they stood there, often waiting for a long time in silence, a peculiar quality of peace and contentment enveloped his spirit. It was all so old, so settled, so quiet, that all sense of retrospect and prospect passed from his mind. He was just glad to be alive and alert, glad of his friendly companion, robust and strong. A few pictures passed before his mind, but he was glad just to let his eyes wander over the scene, the steep turf ramparts, the close-set dingles, the spring sunshine falling softly over all, as the sun passed over and the shadows lengthened. At last a ferret got hung up, and had to be dug out. Howard looked at his watch, and said they must go back to tea. Jack protested in vain that there was plenty of light left. Howard said they were expected back. They left the keeper to recover the ferret, and went back quickly down the valley. Jack was in supreme delight.

"Well, that's an honest way of spending time!" he said. "My word, how I dangle about here; it isn't good for my health. But, by George, I wish I could shoot like you, Mr. Kennedy, Sir."

"Why this sudden obsequiousness?" said Howard.

"Oh, because I never know what to call you," said Jack. "I can't call you by your Christian name, and Mr. Kennedy seems absurd. What do you like?"

"Whatever comes naturally," said Howard.

"Well, I'll call you Howard when we are together," said Jack. "But mind, not at Beaufort! If I call you anything, it will have to be Mr. Kennedy. I hate men fraternising with the Dons. The Dons rather encourage it, because it makes them feel youthful and bucks them up. The men are just as bad about Christian names. Gratters on getting your Christian name, you know! It's like a girls' school. I wonder why Cambridge is more like a girls' school than a public school is? I suppose they are more sentimental. I do loathe that."

When they got back they found Maud at tea; she had been there all the afternoon; she greeted Howard very pleasantly, but there was a touch of embarrassment created by the presence of Jack, who regarded her severely and called her "Miss."

"He's got some grudge against me," said Maud to Howard. "He always has when he calls me Miss."

"What else should I call you?" said Jack; "Mr. Kennedy has been telling me that one should call people by whatever name seems natural. You are a Miss to-day, and no mistake. You are at some game or other!"

"Now, Jack, be quiet!" said Mrs. Graves; "that is how the British paterfamilias gets made. You must not begin to make your womankind uncomfortable in public. You must not think aloud. You must keep up the mysteries of chivalry!"

"I don't care for mysteries," said Jack, "but I'll behave. My father says one mustn't seethe the kid in its mother's milk. I will leave Miss to her conscience."

"Did you enjoy yourself?" said Mrs. Graves to Howard.

"Yes, I'm afraid I did," said Howard, "very much indeed."

"Some book I read the other day," said Mrs. Graves, "stated that men ought to do primeval things, eat under-done beef, sleep in their clothes, drink too much, kill things. It sounds disgusting; but I suppose you felt primeval?"

"I don't know what it was," said Howard. "I felt very well content."

"My word, he can shoot!" said Jack to Mrs. Graves; "I'm a perfect duffer beside him; he shot four-fifths of the bag, and there's a perfect mountain of rabbits to come in."

"Horrible, horrible!" said Mrs. Graves, "but are there enough to go round the village?"

"Two apiece," said Jack, "to every man a damsel or two! Now, Maud, come on—ten o'clock, to-morrow, Sir—and perhaps a little fishing later?"

"You had better stay to lunch, whenever you come and work in the morning, Jack," said Mrs. Graves; "and I'll turn you inside out before very long."

Howard went off to his work with a pleasant sense of the open air. They dined together quietly; after dinner he went and sate down by Mrs. Graves.

"Jack's a nice boy," she said, "very nice—don't make him pert!"

"I am afraid I shan't MAKE him anything," said Howard. "He will go his own way, sure enough; but he isn't pert—he comes to heel, and he remembers. He is like the true gentleman—he is never unintentionally offensive."

Mrs. Graves laughed, and said, "Yes, that is so."

Howard went on, "I have been thinking a great deal about our talk yesterday, and it's a new light to me. I do not think I fully understand, but I feel that there is something very big behind it all, which I want to understand. This great force you speak of—is it an AIM?"

"That's a good question," said Mrs. Graves. "No, it's not an aim at all. It's too big for that; an aim is quite on a lower level. There's no aim in the big things. A man doesn't fall ill with an aim—he doesn't fall in love with an aim. It just comes upon him."

"But then," said Howard, "is it more than a sort of artistic gift which some have and many have not? I have known a few real artists, and they just did not care for anything else in the world. All the rest of life was just a passing of time, a framework to their work. There was an artist I knew, who was dying. The doctor asked him if he wanted anything. 'Just a full day's work,' he said."

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "it is like that in a way; it is the one thing worth doing and being. But it isn't a conscious using of minutes and opportunities—it isn't a plan; it is just a fulness of life, rejoicing to live, to see, to interpret, to understand. It doesn't matter what life you live—it is how you live it. Life is only the cup for the liquor which must else be spilled. I can only use an old phrase—it is being 'in the spirit': when you ask whether it is a special gift, of course some people have it more strongly and consciously than others. But it is the thing to which we are all tending sooner or later; and the mysterious thing about it is that so many people do not seem to know they have it. Yet it is always just the becoming aware of what is there."

"How do you account for that?" said Howard.

"Why," said Mrs. Graves, "to a great extent because religion is in such an odd state. It is as if the people who knew or suspected the secret, did all they could to conceal it—just as parents try to keep their children ignorant of the ideas of sex. Religion has got so horribly mixed up with other things, with respectability, social order, conventions, doctrines, metaphysics, ceremony, music—it has become so specialised in the hands of priests who have a great institution to support, that dust is thrown in people's eyes—and just as they begin to think they perceive the secret, they are surrounded by tiresome dogmatists saying, 'It is this and that—it is this doctrine, that tradition.' Well, that sort of religion IS a very special accomplishment—ecclesiastical religion. I don't deny that it has artistic qualities, but it is a poor narrow product; and then the technically religious make such a fuss if they see the shoal of fish escaping the net, and beat the water so vehemently that the fish think it safer to stay where they are, and so you get sardines in tins!" said Mrs. Graves with a smile—"by which I mean the churches."

"Yes," said Howard, "that is perfectly true! Christianity was at first the most new, radical, original, anarchical force in the world—it was the purest individualism; it was meant to over-ride all human combinations by simply disregarding them; it was not a social reform, and still less a political reform; it was a new spirit, and it was meant to create a new kind of fellowship, the mere existence of which would do away with the need for organisation; it broke meekly, like water, through all human partitions, and I suppose it has been tamed."

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "it is not now the world against religion. It is organised religion against real religion, because religion is above and apart from all institutions. Christ said, 'When they persecute you in one city, flee into another'; and the result of that is the Monroe doctrine!"

"But are you not a Christian?" said Howard.

"I believe myself to be one," said Mrs. Graves; "and no doubt you will say, 'Why do you live in wealth and comfort?' That's a difficulty, because Christ meant us to be poor. But if one hands over one's money to Christian institutions now, one is subsidising the forces of the world—at least so I think. It's very difficult. Christ said that we should bestow our goods upon the poor; but if I were to divide my goods to-morrow among my neighbours, they would be only injured by it—it would not be Christian of them to take them—they have enough. If they have not, I give it them. It does less harm to me than to them. But this I know is very irrational; and the point is not to be affected by that. I could live in a cottage tomorrow, if there was need."

"Yes, I believe you could," said Howard.

"As long as one is not dependent upon money," said Mrs. Graves, "it doesn't very much matter. The real point is to take the world as it comes, and to be sure that one is on the side of what is true and simple and sincere; but I do not pretend to have solved everything, and I am hoping to learn more. I do learn more every day. One can't interfere with the lives of people; poverty is not the worst evil. It is nice to be clean, but I sometimes think that the only good I get from money is cleanliness—and that is only a question of habit! The real point is to be in life, to watch life, to love it, to live it; to be in direct relations with everyone, not to be superior, not to be KIND—that implies superiority. I just plod along, believing, fearing, hoping, loving, glad to live while I may, not afraid to die when I must. The only detachment worth having is the detachment from the idea of making things one's own. I can't appropriate the sunset and the spring, the loves and cares of others; it is all divided up, more fairly than we think. I have had many sorrows and sufferings; but I am more interested than ever in life, glad to help and be helped, ready to change, desiring to change. It isn't a great way of living; but one must not want that—and believe me, dear Howard, it is the only way."

VIII

THE INHERITANCE

The first day or two of Howard's stay at Windlow seemed like a week, the succeeding week seemed like a day, as soon as he had settled down to a certain routine of life. He became aware of a continued sympathetic and quite unobtrusive scrutiny of him, his ways, his tastes, his thoughts, on the part of his aunt—her questions were subtle, penetrating, provocative enough for him to wish to express an opinion. He did not dislike it, and used no diplomacy himself; he found his aunt's mind shrewd, fresh, unaffected, and at the same time inspiring. She habitually spoke with a touch of irony—not bitter irony, but the irony that is at once a compliment and a sign of affection, such as Socrates used to the handsome boys that came about him. She was not in the smallest degree cynical, but she was very decidedly humorous. Howard thought that she did people even more than justice, while she was frankly delighted if they also provided her with amusement. She held nothing inconveniently sacred, and Howard admired the fine balance of interest and detachment which she showed, her delight in life, her high faith in something large, eternal, and advancing. Her health was evidently very frail, but she made light of it—it was almost the only thing she did not seem to find interesting. How could this clever, vivacious woman, Howard asked himself, retain this wonderful freshness and sweetness of mind in such solitude and dulness of life? He could imagine her the centre of a salon—she had all the gifts of a saloniste, the power of keeping a talk in hand, of giving her entire thought to her neighbour, and yet holding the whole group in view. Solitary, frail, secluded as she was, she was like an unrusted sword, and lavished her wit and her affection on all alike, callers, villagers, servants; and yet he never saw her tired or depressed. She took life as she found it, and was delighted with its simplest combinations. He found her company entirely absorbing and inspiring. He told her, in answer to her frank interest—she seemed to be interested on her own account, and not to please him—more about his own life than he had ever told a human being. She always wanted facts, impressions, details: "Enlarge that—describe that—tell me some more particulars," were phrases often on her lips. And he was delighted, too, by the belief that her explorations into his mind and life pleased and satisfied her. It dawned on him gradually that she was a woman of rich experience, and that her tranquillity was an aftergrowth, a development—"That was in my discontented days," she said once. "It is impossible to think of you as discontented," he had said. "Ah," she said lightly, "I had my dreams, like everyone else; but I saw at last that one must TAKE life—one can't MAKE it—and accept its limitations with enjoyment."

One morning, when he was called, the butler gave him a letter—he had been there about a fortnight—from his aunt. He opened it, expecting that it was to say that she was ill. He found that it ran as follows:

"MY DEAR BOY,—I always think that business is best done by letter and not by conversation. I am getting an old woman and my life is uncertain. I want to make a statement of intentions. I may tell you that I am a comparatively wealthy woman; my dear husband left me everything he had; including what he spent on this place, it came to about sixty thousand pounds. Now I intend to leave that back to his family; there are several sisters of his alive, and they are not wealthy people; but I have saved money too; and it is my wish to leave you this house and the residue of my fortune, after arranging for some small legacies. The estate is not worth very much—a great deal of it is wild downland. But you would have the place, when I died, and about twelve hundred a year. It would be understood that you should live here a certain amount—I don't believe in non-resident landlords. But I do not mean to tie you down to live here altogether. It is only my wish that you should do something for your tenants and neighbours. If you stayed on at Cambridge you could come here in vacations. But my hope would be that you might marry. It is a house for a family. If you do not care to live here, I would rather it were sold. While I live, I hope you will be content to spend some time here, and make acquaintance with our neighbours, by which I mean the village people. I shall tell Cousin Frank my intentions, and that will probably suffice to make it known. I have a very great love for the place, and as far as I can see, you will be likely to have the same.

"You need not feel overburdened with gratitude. You are my only near relation; and indeed I may say that if I were to die before I have signed my will, you would inherit all my fortune as next-of-kin. So you will see that instead of enriching you, I am to a great extent disinheriting you! Just tell me simply if you acquiesce. I want no pledges, nor do I want to bind you in any way. I will not say more, except that it has been a very deep delight to me to find a son in my old age. I had always hoped it would turn out so; and in my experience, God is very careful to give us our desires, just or unjust, great or small.—Your loving Aunt,
"ANNE GRAVES."

Howard was stupefied for a moment by this communication, but he was more affected by the love and confidence it showed than by the prospect of wealth—wealth was not a thing he had ever expected, or indeed thought much about; but it was a home that he had found. The great lack of his life had been a local attachment, a place where he had reason to live. Cambridge with all its joys had never been quite that. A curious sense of emotion at the thought that the sweet place, the beautiful old house, was to be his own, came over him; and another far-off dream darted into his mind as well, which he did not dare to shape. He got up and wrote a short note.

"MY DEAR AUNT,—Your letter fills me with astonishment. I can only say that I accept in love and gratitude what you offer me. The feeling that I have found a home and a mother, so suddenly and so unexpectedly, fills me with joy and happiness. I think with sadness of all the good years I have missed, by a sort of stupid perversity; but I won't regard that now. I will only thank you once more with all my heart for the proof of affection which your letter gives me.—Your grateful and affectionate nephew,
"HOWARD KENNEDY."

The old house had a welcoming air as he passed through it that morning; it seemed to hold him in its patient embrace, to ask for love. He spent the morning with Jack, but in a curiously distracted mood.

"What has happened to you?" said Jack at the end of the morning. "You have not been thinking about what you are doing. You seem like a man who has been stroking a winning crew. Has the Master been made a Dean, and have you been elected Master? They say you have a chance."

Howard laughed and said, "You are very sharp, Jack! I have NOT been attending. Something very unexpected has happened. I mustn't tell you now, but you will soon know. I have drawn a prize. Now don't pump me!"

"Here's another prize!" said Jack. "You are to lunch with us to-morrow, and to discuss my future career. There's glory for you! I am not to be present, and father is scheming to get me invited to luncheon here. If he fails, I am to take out some sandwiches and to eat them in the kitchen garden. Maud is to be present, and 'CONFER,' he says, 'though without a vote'!"

Howard met Mrs. Graves in the drawing-room; she kissed him, and holding his hand for a moment said, "Thank you for your note, my dear boy. That's all settled, then! Well, it's a great joy to me, and I get more than I give by the bargain. It's a shameless bribe, to secure the company of a charming nephew for a sociable old woman. Some time I shall want to tell you more about the people here—but I won't bore you; and let us just get quietly used to it all. One must not be pompous about money; it is doing it too much honour; and the best of it is that I have found a son." Howard smiled, kissed the hand which held his, and said no more.

The Vicar turned up in the afternoon, and apologised to Mrs. Graves for asking Howard to luncheon on the following day. "The fact is," he said, "that I am anxious to have the benefit of his advice about Jack's future. I think we ought to look at things from all sorts of angles, and Howard will be able, with his professional knowledge of young men, to correct the tendency to parental bias which is so hard to eliminate. I am a fond father—fond, but I hope not foolish—and I trust we shall be able to arrive at some conclusion."

"Then Jack and Maud can come and lunch with me," said Mrs. Graves; "you won't want them, I am sure."

"You are a sorceress," said Mr. Sandys, "in the literary sense of course—you divine my thought!"—but it was evident that he had much looked forward to using a little diplomacy, and was somewhat disappointed. He went on, "It will be very kind of you to have Jack, but I think I shall want Maud's assistance. I have a great belief in the penetration—in the observation of the feminine mind; more than I have, if you will excuse my frankness, in their power of dealing with a practical situation. Woman to interpret events, men to foresee contingencies. Woman to indicate, man to predicate—perhaps I mean predict! No matter; the thought, I think, is clear. Well, then, that is settled! I claim Howard for luncheon—a very simple affair—and for a walk; and by five o'clock we shall have settled this important matter, I don't doubt."

"Very well," said Mrs. Graves; "but before you go, I must claim YOU for a short stroll. I have something to tell you; and as Howard and Jack are dying to get away to deprive some innocent creatures of the privilege of life, they had better go and leave us."

That evening Howard had a long, quiet talk to his aunt. She said, "I am not going to talk business. Our lawyer is coming over on Saturday, and you had better get all the details from him. You must just go round the place with him, and see if there is anything you would like to see altered. It will be an immense comfort to put all that in your hands. Mind, dear boy," she said, "I want you to begin at once. I shall be ready to do whatever is necessary." Then she went on in a different strain. "But there is one other thing I want to say now, and that is that I should above all things like to see you married—don't, by the way, fall in love with dear Jane, who worships the ground you tread on! I have been observing you, and I feel little doubt that marriage is what you most need. I don't expect it has been in your mind at all! Perhaps you have not had enough to marry on, but I am not sorry for that, for a special reason; and I think, too, that men who have the care of boys and young men have their paternal instinct to a large extent satisfied; but that is only a small part of marriage! It isn't only that I want this house to be a home—that's merely a sentimental feeling—but you need to love and be loved, and to have the anxious care of someone close to you. There is nothing like marriage. It probably is not quite as transcendental an affair as you think. That's the mistake which intellectual people so often make—it's a very natural and obvious thing—and of course it means far more to a woman than to a man. But life is not complete without it. It is the biggest fact which happens to us. I only want you just to keep it in your mind as a possibility. Don't be afraid of it! My husband was your age when he married me, and though I was very unreasonable in those days, I am sure it was a happy thing for him, though he thought he was too old. There, I don't want to press you, in this or in anything. I do not think you will be happy living here without a wife, even if you go on with Cambridge. But one can't mould things to one's wishes. My fault is to want to organise everything for everybody, and I have made all my worst blunders so. I hope I have given up all that. But if I live to see it, the day when you come and tell me that you have won a wife will be the next happiest day to the day when I found a son of my heart. There, dear boy, I won't sentimentalise; but that's the truth; I shall wake up to-morrow and for many days, feeling that some good fortune has befallen me; but we should have found each other some time, even if I had been a poor and miserable old woman. You have given me all that I desired; give me a daughter too, if you can!"

"Well," said Howard, smiling, "I have no theory on the subject. I never regarded marriage as either impossible or possible. It seemed to me that one was either caught away in a fiery chariot, or else was left under one's juniper tree; and I have been very comfortable there. I thought I had all I wanted; and I feel a little dizzy now at the way in which my cup of life has suddenly been seized and filled with wine to the brim. One doesn't find a home and a mother and a wife in a fortnight!"

"I don't know!" said Mrs. Graves, smiling at him. "Some of the best marriages I know have been made in haste. I remember talking to a girl the other day who was engaged to a man within ten days of the time they had met. I said, 'Well, you have not wasted time.' 'Oh,' she said, apparently rather hurt, 'I kept Henry waiting a long time. I had to think it all over. I wasn't by any means sure I wanted to marry him.' I quoted a saying of an old friend of mine who when he was asked why he had proposed to a girl he had only known three days, said, 'I don't know! I liked her, and thought I should like to see more of her!'"

"I think I must make out a list of possible candidates," said Howard, smiling. "I dare say your Jane would help me. I could mark them for various qualities; we believe in marks at Cambridge. But I must have time to get used to all my new gifts."

"Oh, one doesn't take long to get used to happiness," said Mrs. Graves. "It always seems the most natural thing in the world. Tennyson was all wrong about sorrow. Sorrow is always the casual mistress, and not the wife. One recovers from everything but happiness; that is one's native air."

IX

THE VICAR