d some very unpleasant
things to me. The boy, I believe, might have some good in him, but the
girl is simply terrible."

"H'm! I think just the reverse, you know."

"They'll come to awful grief if they're not brought up sharp. They ought
to be sent to the colonies to learn reality."

Malloring nodded.

"Come out, Mildred, and see how they're getting on with the new vinery."
And they went out together through the French window.

The vinery was of their own designing, and of extraordinary interest. In
contemplation of its lofty glass and aluminium-cased pipes the feeling
of soreness left her. It was very pleasant, standing with Gerald,
looking at what they had planned together; there was a soothing sense
of reality about that visit, after the morning's happening, with its
disappointment, its reminder of immorality and discontent, and of
folk ungrateful for what was done for their good. And, squeezing her
husband's arm, she murmured:

"It's really exactly what we thought it would be, Gerald!"

CHAPTER XIII

About five o'clock of that same afternoon, Gerald Malloring went to see
Tod. An open-air man himself, who often deplored the long hours he was
compelled to spend in the special atmosphere of the House of Commons,
he rather envied Tod his existence in this cottage, crazed from age,
and clothed with wistaria, rambler roses, sweetbrier, honeysuckle, and
Virginia creeper. Freeland had, in his opinion, quite a jolly life of
it--the poor fellow not being able, of course, to help having a cranky
wife and children like that. He pondered, as he went along, over a talk
at Becket, when Stanley, still under the influence of Felix's outburst,
had uttered some rather queer sayings. For instance, he had supposed
that they (meaning, apparently, himself and Malloring) WERE rather
unable to put themselves in the position of these Trysts and Gaunts. He
seemed to speak of them as one might speak generically of Hodge, which
had struck Malloring as singular, it not being his habit to see anything
in common between an individual case, especially on his own estate, and
the ethics of a general proposition. The place for general propositions
was undoubtedly the House of Commons, where they could be supported
one way or the other, out of blue books. He had little use for them in
private life, where innumerable things such as human nature and all that
came into play. He had stared rather hard at his host when Stanley had
followed up