Zealand to love his son--for nothing else.

He had an impulse to run after him, to seize him, and hold him, and
force him to come back.

Then he remembered--his pride stung him. He would fight it out to the
end; he would, as his father said, "show them a stiff back."

He was very white, and for a moment he had to steady himself by the
table. The silver teapot, the ham, the racks of toast were all
there--how strange, when the rest of the world had changed; he was
quite alone now--he must remember that--he had no son. And he, too,
went out, closing the door quietly behind him.

CHAPTER VIII

Some letters during this week:--

23 SOUTHWICK CRESCENT, W.,
_October_ 10, 1906.

My dear Robin--I should have written before, I am ashamed of my
omission, but my approaching departure abroad has thrown a great many
things on my hands; I have a paper to finish for Clarkson and an essay
for the _New Review_, and letter-writing has been at a standstill. It
was delightful--that little peep of you that I got--and it only made me
regret the more that it is impossible to see much of you nowadays. I
cannot help feeling that there is a danger of vegetation if one limits
oneself too completely to a provincial life, and, charming though
Cornwall is, its very fascination causes one to forget the importance
of the outer world. I fancied that I discerned signs that you yourself
felt this confinement and wished for something broader. Well, why not
have it? I confess that I see no reason. Come up to London for a
time--go abroad--your beloved Germany is waiting for you, and a year at
one of the Universities would be both amusing and instructive. These
are only suggestions; I should hesitate to offer them at all were it
not that there has always been such sympathy between us that I know you
will not resent them. Of course, the arrival of your father has made
considerable difference. I must say, honestly, that I regretted to see
that you had not more in common. The fault, I expect, has been on both
sides; as I said to you before, it has been hard for him to realise
exactly what it is that we consider important. We--quite mistakenly
possibly--have come to feel that certain things, art, literature,
music, are absolutely essential to us, morally and physically.

They are nothing at all to him, and I can quite understand that you
have found it difficult--almost impossible--to grasp his standpoint. I
must confess that he