. Much had happened since then; the supreme thing had happened
since then! Nothing else really mattered, he thought, sitting down on
the edge of a half-empty packing case, and lighting a cigarette, not
even the shooting of Nancy. He would give her a dozen Nancys if she
wanted them! The first and most important thing in the world was to
see her again; and he had to arrange how, and when, and where he
should paint her. Obviously he must at once proceed to Mount Music.

There is a saying among Larry's countrymen: "If a man want a thing he
_mus'_ have it!" Fortune had, so far, been kind to Larry, and
those things that he had wanted sufficiently, he had had. It now
remained to be proved if the rule were to have an exception.

"I'm going over to Mount Music just now," he said to Frederica at tea
time. "I want to see them all. Will you come, Aunt Freddy?"

Aunt Freddy looked perturbed.

"You haven't seen Cousin Dick yet, have you?"

"No. How could I? He wasn't out. I've seen no one yet but Christian."

His voice lingered on the beloved name, beloved, consciously, since so
few hours.

But Aunt Freddy was not apt to perceive fine shades, and she was,
moreover, occupied with the framing of a warning.

"You know that Cousin Dick is a good deal changed since you saw him?"
she began. "He had a sort of heart attack about a year ago--Dr. Mangan
was with him, luckily. They have to try and keep him very quiet, and
the worst of it is that so little puts him out."

"Well, I shan't put him out, shall I?" said Larry, confidently,
beginning on a third slice of cake, love not having, so far, impaired
his appetite.

"He was fearfully put out about your selling to the tenants. He said
young Mangan had no right to advise you to sell so low. He told me
that even Dr. Mangan was quite against his doing so."

Miss Coppinger regarded her nephew with anxiety. After four years of
absence, one never knew exactly how much a young man might not have
changed. That little, upturned, golden moustache might not by any
means be the whole of it. The ice barrier had been forgotten in the
excitement of his return, but even though she understood--and tried
not to feel that the fact had its mitigations--that all young men in
France were atheists, that other fact remained, that next Sunday, when
she started for Knock Ceoil church, Larry, if he went anywhere, would
go to the white chapel on the hill. Aunt Freddy was afraid of no one
where she believed he