cutting a
dash. It was all a damned heart-aching bore. 'I'll be even with that
chap Jolly,' he thought, trailing up the stairs, past the room where his
mother was biting her pillow to smother a sense of desolation which was
trying to make her sob.

And soon only one of the diners at James' was awake--Soames, in his
bedroom above his father's.

So that fellow Jolyon was in Paris--what was he doing there? Hanging
round Irene! The last report from Polteed had hinted that there might
be something soon. Could it be this? That fellow, with his beard and his
cursed amused way of speaking--son of the old man who had given him the
nickname 'Man of Property,' and bought the fatal house from him. Soames
had ever resented having had to sell the house at Robin Hill; never
forgiven his uncle for having bought it, or his cousin for living in it.

Reckless of the cold, he threw his window up and gazed out across the
Park. Bleak and dark the January night; little sound of traffic; a frost
coming; bare trees; a star or two. 'I'll see Polteed to-morrow,' he
thought. 'By God! I'm mad, I think, to want her still. That fellow!
If...? Um! No!'

CHAPTER X--DEATH OF THE DOG BALTHASAR

Jolyon, who had crossed from Calais by night, arrived at Robin Hill on
Sunday morning. He had sent no word beforehand, so walked up from the
station, entering his domain by the coppice gate. Coming to the log
seat fashioned out of an old fallen trunk, he sat down, first laying his
overcoat on it.

'Lumbago!' he thought; 'that's what love ends in at my time of life!'
And suddenly Irene seemed very near, just as she had been that day of
rambling at Fontainebleau when they had sat on a log to eat their lunch.
Hauntingly near! Odour drawn out of fallen leaves by the pale-filtering
sunlight soaked his nostrils. 'I'm glad it isn't spring,' he thought.
With the scent of sap, and the song of birds, and the bursting of the
blossoms, it would have been unbearable! 'I hope I shall be over it by
then, old fool that I am!' and picking up his coat, he walked on into
the field. He passed the pond and mounted the hill slowly.

Near the top a hoarse barking greeted him. Up on the lawn above the
fernery he could see his old dog Balthasar. The animal, whose dim eyes
took his master for a stranger, was warning the world against him.
Jolyon gave his special whistle. Even at that distance of a hundred
yards and more he could see the dawning recognition in the obese
brown