. I've been
building so much."

She realized the change in him then more fully than ever for he faced
her squarely and without evasion.

"There's no change in her, mother, but I think you and I will both have
to get used to this: she's not in love with me. She doesn't pretend to
be."

"Don't tell me it's still that man!"

"I don't know." He took a turn or two about the terrace. "I don't think
it is, mother. I don't think she cares for anybody, that way, certainly
not for me. And that's the trouble." He faced her again. "If marrying
me isn't going to make her happy, I won't hold her to it. You'll have to
support me in that, mother. I'm a pretty weak sister sometimes."

That appeal touched her as nothing had done for a long time. "I'll help
all I can, if the need comes," she said, and turned and went heavily
into the house.

XLVII

David was satisfied. The great love of his life had been given to Dick,
and now Dick was his again. He grieved for Lucy, but he knew that the
parting was not for long, and that from whatever high place she looked
down she would know that. He was satisfied. He looked on his work and
found it good. There was no trace of weakness nor of vacillation in the
man who sat across from him at the table, or slammed in and out of the
house after his old fashion.

But he was not content. At first it was enough to have Dick there, to
stop in the doorway of his room and see him within, occupied with the
prosaic business of getting into his clothes or out of them, now
and then to put a hand on his shoulder, to hear him fussing in the
laboratory again, and to be called to examine divers and sundry smears
to which Dick attached impressive importance and more impressive names.
But behind Dick's surface cheerfulness he knew that he was eating his
heart out.

And there was nothing to be done. Nothing. Secretly David watched the
papers for the announcement of Elizabeth's engagement, and each day drew
a breath of relief when it did not come. And he had done another thing
secretly, too; he did not tell Dick when her ring came back. Annie had
brought the box, without a letter, and the incredible cruelty of the
thing made David furious. He stamped into his office and locked it in a
drawer, with the definite intention of saving Dick that one additional
pang at a time when he already had enough to hear.

For things were going very badly. The fight was on.

It was a battle without action. Each side was