ees in blossom; and his
heart ached suddenly because he might never see them flower again.
Spring! Decidedly no man ought to have to die while his heart was still
young enough to love beauty! Blackbirds sang recklessly in the
shrubbery, swallows were flying high, the leaves above him glistened;
and over the fields was every imaginable tint of early foliage,
burnished by the level sunlight, away to where the distant 'smoke-bush'
blue was trailed along the horizon. Irene's flowers in their narrow
beds had startling individuality that evening, little deep assertions
of gay life. Only Chinese and Japanese painters, and perhaps Leonardo,
had known how to get that startling little ego into each painted
flower, and bird, and beast--the ego, yet the sense of species, the
universality of life as well. They were the fellows! 'I've made nothing
that will live!' thought Jolyon; 'I've been an amateur--a mere lover,
not a creator. Still, I shall leave Jon behind me when I go.' What luck
that the boy had not been caught by that ghastly war! He might so
easily have been killed, like poor Jolly twenty years ago out in the
Transvaal. Jon would do something some day--if the Age didn't spoil
him--an imaginative chap! His whim to take up farming was but a bit of
sentiment, and about as likely to last. And just then he saw them
coming up the field: Irene and the boy, walking from the station, with
their arms linked. And, getting up, he strolled down through the new
rose garden to meet them....

Irene came into his room that night and sat down by the window. She sat
there without speaking till he said:

"What is it, my love?"

"We had an encounter to-day."

"With whom?"

"Soames."

Soames! He had kept that name out of his thoughts these last two years;
conscious that it was bad for him. And, now, his heart moved in a
disconcerting manner, as if it had side-slipped within his chest.

Irene went on quietly:

"He and his daughter were in the Gallery, and afterwards at the
confectioner's where we had tea."

Jolyon went over and put his hand on her shoulder.

"How did he look?"

"Grey; but otherwise much the same."

"And the daughter?"

"Pretty. At least, Jon thought so."

Jolyon's heart side-slipped again. His wife's face had a strained and
puzzled look.

"You didn't--?" he began.

"No; but Jon knows their name. The girl dropped her handkerchief and he
picked it up."

Jolyon sat down on his bed. An evil chance!

"June w