lose if you do? I
suppose you think that I am sentimental, romantic, but upon my word I
can't see that you have improved Pendragon very much in all these
twenty years. It was charming once--a place with individuality,
independence; now it is like anywhere else--a miniature Brighton."

He knew that he was wasting his words. There was a pause, and he felt
that they were all three laughing at him--yes, Robin as well. He had
only made a fool of himself; they could not understand how much he had
expected during those weary years of waiting--how much he had expected
and how much he had missed.

Clare looked round the room and was relieved to find that only Beldam
was present. If one of the family was bent on being absurd, it was as
well that there should only be one of the servants to hear him.

"You know that you are to be on your trial this afternoon, Harry?" she
said.

"My trial?" he repeated, bewildered.

"Yes--it's my at-home day, you know--first Thursdays--and, of course,
they'll all come to see you. We shall have the whole town----" She
looked at him a little anxiously; so much depended on how he behaved,
and she wasn't completely reassured by his present manner.

If he astonished them all this afternoon by saying things about the
Cove like that, it would be too terrible!

"How horrible!" he said, laughing. "I'm very much afraid that I shan't
do you justice, Clare. I'm no good at small conversation."

His treating it so lightly made it worse, and she wondered how she
could force him to realise the seriousness of it.

"All the nicest people in Pendragon," she said; "and they are rather
ridiculously critical, and of course they talk."

He looked at her and laughed. "I wish they were Maories," he said, "I
shouldn't be nearly so frightened!"

She leant over the table to emphasise her words. "But it really does
make a difference, Harry. First impressions count a lot. You'll be
nice to them, won't you?"

The laugh had left his eyes. It was serious, as he knew. He had had
no idea that he would have, so to speak, "funked" it so. It was
partly, of course, because of Robin. He did not want to make a fool of
himself before the boy. He was already beginning to realise what were
the things that counted with Robin.

The real pathos of the situation lay in his terrible anxiety to do the
right thing. If he had taken it quietly, had trusted to his natural
discretion and had left circumstances to deve