s along the creases in his
brown neck. He sat with his hands clasped over his knees, his
heels braced in the soft soil, and looked blankly off across the
field. He found himself absolutely unable to touch upon the vast
body of experience he wished to communicate to Claude. It lay in
his chest like a physical misery, and the desire to speak
struggled there. But he had no words, no way to make himself
understood. He had no argument to present. What he wanted to do
was to hold up life as he had found it, like a picture, to his
young friend; to warn him, without explanation, against certain
heart-breaking disappointments. It could not be done, he saw. The
dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the
young. The only way that Claude could ever come to share his
secret, was to live. His strong yellow teeth closed tighter and
tighter on the cigar, which had gone out like the first. He did
not look at Claude, but while he watched the wind plough soft,
flowery roads in the field, the boy's face was clearly before
him, with its expression of reticent pride melting into the
desire to please, and the slight stiffness of his shoulders, set
in a kind of stubborn loyalty. Claude lay on the sod beside him,
rather tired after his walk in the sun, a little melancholy,
though he did not know why.

After a long while Mr. Royce unclasped his broad, thick-fingered
miller's hands, and for a moment took out the macerated cigar.
"Well, Claude," he said with determined cheerfulness, "we'll
always be better friends than is common between father and
son-in-law. You'll find out that pretty nearly everything you
believe about life--about marriage, especially--is lies. I don't
know why people prefer to live in that sort of a world, but they
do."

VI

After his interview with Mr. Royce, Claude drove directly to the
mill house. As he came up the shady road, he saw with
disappointment the flash of two white dresses instead of one,
moving about in the sunny flower garden. The visitor was Gladys
Farmer. This was her vacation time. She had walked out to the
mill in the cool of the morning to spend the day with Enid. Now
they were starting off to gather water-cresses, and had stopped
in the garden to smell the heliotrope. On this scorching
afternoon the purple sprays gave out a fragrance that hung over
the flower-bed and brushed their cheeks like a warm breath. The
girls looked up at the same moment and recognized Claude. They
wa