r the love of the one lady. She chuckled and laughed
as she told how the ousted lover had sat with his head buried under his
wing, on the gravel.

When they arrived back at the house, Hermione stood on the lawn and
sang out, in a strange, small, high voice that carried very far:

'Rupert! Rupert!' The first syllable was high and slow, the second
dropped down. 'Roo-o-opert.'

But there was no answer. A maid appeared.

'Where is Mr Birkin, Alice?' asked the mild straying voice of Hermione.
But under the straying voice, what a persistent, almost insane WILL!

'I think he's in his room, madam.'

'Is he?'

Hermione went slowly up the stairs, along the corridor, singing out in
her high, small call:

'Ru-oo-pert! Ru-oo pert!'

She came to his door, and tapped, still crying: 'Roo-pert.'

'Yes,' sounded his voice at last.

'What are you doing?'

The question was mild and curious.

There was no answer. Then he opened the door.

'We've come back,' said Hermione. 'The daffodils are SO beautiful.'

'Yes,' he said, 'I've seen them.'

She looked at him with her long, slow, impassive look, along her
cheeks.

'Have you?' she echoed. And she remained looking at him. She was
stimulated above all things by this conflict with him, when he was like
a sulky boy, helpless, and she had him safe at Breadalby. But
underneath she knew the split was coming, and her hatred of him was
subconscious and intense.

'What were you doing?' she reiterated, in her mild, indifferent tone.
He did not answer, and she made her way, almost unconsciously into his
room. He had taken a Chinese drawing of geese from the boudoir, and was
copying it, with much skill and vividness.

'You are copying the drawing,' she said, standing near the table, and
looking down at his work. 'Yes. How beautifully you do it! You like it
very much, don't you?'

'It's a marvellous drawing,' he said.

'Is it? I'm so glad you like it, because I've always been fond of it.
The Chinese Ambassador gave it me.'

'I know,' he said.

'But why do you copy it?' she asked, casual and sing-song. 'Why not do
something original?'

'I want to know it,' he replied. 'One gets more of China, copying this
picture, than reading all the books.'

'And what do you get?'

She was at once roused, she laid as it were violent hands on him, to
extract his secrets from him. She MUST know. It was a dreadful tyranny,
an obsession in her, to know all he knew. For some time he was sile