whether it is likely that he should not be in a hurry!"

He was talking as much to reassure himself as Nelly. To be sure, Robin
must be as eager a lover as it was in his capacity to be. There was
nothing volcanic about Robin. He was steady, sensible, reliable! Yes,
better let the affair be settled at once. June would be a good month for
the wedding. He could go afterwards and take the cure at Vichy for his
gout. Pat could go with him. Perhaps Nelly would take over Bridget and
some of the other servants. Why shouldn't Robin and Nelly have the house
just as it stood? He would make them a deed of gift of it. He could have
a bachelor's flat somewhere near the Parks and the Clubs, with Pat to
look after him. It would be easier for him if the old house sanctified
by many memories were not to be broken up.

Nelly's exaltation carried her on to Saturday afternoon. Sir Robin had
arrived on the morning of that day while the General and Nelly were out
climbing the lower range of a hill. The Dowager was no climber. More
than that, she had acquired tact and good feeling it seemed in her
latter days, for she left father and daughter very much together. The
General's heart had begun to soften towards her. He had begun to ask
himself how it was that he could have so persistently misjudged her all
those years. If Gerald had liked her well enough to marry her, surely he
could have done her more justice than so to dislike her.

The Dowager had her son to herself for some hours of the Saturday
forenoon. He had suggested following Nelly and her father up the
mountain track, but she had detained him with a demonstrativeness
unusual in her, which struck him like a jarring note. What had come over
his mother? She had always been a woman of a cold and even harsh manner,
at least to him. To be sure, he had noticed with amazement that she had
been different to Nelly. She ought to have had a daughter instead of a
son. He had no idea that if he had been a dashing soldier he might have
been a far less dutiful son, a far less satisfactory member of society
than he was and yet have awakened a feeling in his mother's breast which
she had never given to him. Now he was embarrassed somewhat by her
playful insistence on her mother's right to her boy for a time.
Playfulness sat as ill on her as could well be imagined, and he was
captious over her raillery on his hurry to be at his cousin's side,
calling it atrocious taste in his irritable mind, he who had