gained the
advantage of age and position, neutralized till now by Val's
cooler self-restraint. "I won't look on you as anything but a
brother-in-law; a younger brother of my own, Val, if you can
support the relation. Won't you start fresh with me? I've not
given you much cause to think well of me up to now, but I love
Isabel, and I'll do my best to make her happy. I might find
forgiveness difficult if I were you, but then," for his life he
could not have said whether he was in earnest or chaffing Val,
"I'm a Jew of Shylock's breed and you're a Christian."

"But, my dear fellow, what is there to forgive? We're only too
delighted and grateful for the honour done us: it's a brilliant
match, of course, far better than she could expect to make." A
duller man than Lawrence could not have missed the secret silken
mischief. "And to me, to all of us, you're more than kind; it's
nice to feel that instead of losing a sister I shall gain a
brother."

"You are an infernal prig, Val!"

"Oh," said Val, this time without irony, "It's easy for you to
come with an apology in one hand and a cheque in the other."

He turned away and stood looking out into the garden. In the
lilac bushes over the lawn Isabel's robin was still singing his
winter carol, and the atmosphere was saturated with the smell of
wet, dead leaves, the poignant, fatal smell of autumn. "There's
winter in the air tonight," said Val half aloud.

"What?" said Lawrence startled.

"I say that life's too short for quarrelling." He held out his
hand. "But be gentle with her, she is very young.-- Yes, what is
it, Fanny?"

"Major Clowes's compliments, sir, and he would be glad to see
Captain Hyde as soon as convenient."

At Wanhope half an hour later the sun had gone down behind a bank
of purple fog, and cloud after cloud had put off its vermilion
glow and faded into a vague dimness of twilight: house and garden
were quiet, except for the silver rippling of the river which
went on and on, ceaselessly fleeting over shallows or washing
along through faded sedge. These river murmurs haunted Wanhope
all day and night, and so did the low river-mists: in autumn by
six o'clock the grass was already ankle deep and white as a field
of lilies.

The tall doors were wide open now: no lamps were lit, but a big
log fire blazed on the hearth, and through the empurpled evening
air the house streamed with flame-light, flinging a ruddy glow
over leafless acacia and misty tu