slot as he rounded a little barrier. Claude sprang up after him,
dropping in a similar piece of money. Its tinkle as it fell shivered
through his nerves with the excruciating sharpness of a knife-thrust.

CHAPTER XXI

Claude went on to the office as a matter of routine, but when his father
appeared he begged to be allowed to go home again. "I'm not well,
father," he complained, his pallor bearing out his statement.

Masterman's expression was compassionate. He was very gentle with his
son since the latter had been going so often to the Darlings'. "All
right, my boy. Do go home. Better drop in on Thor. Give you something to
put you to rights."

But Claude didn't drop in on Thor. He climbed the hill north of the
pond, taking the direction with which he was more familiar in the
gloaming. In the morning sunlight he hardly recognized his surroundings,
nor did he know where to look for Rosie at this unusual time of day. He
was about to turn into the conservatory in which he was accustomed to
find her, when an Italian with beady eyes and a knowing grin, who was
raking a bed that had been prepared for early planting, pointed to the
last hothouse in the row. Claude loathed the man for divining what he
wanted, but obeyed him.

It was a cucumber-house. That is, where two or three months earlier
there had been lettuce there were now cucumber-vines running on lines of
twine, and already six feet high. It was like going into a vineyard, but
a vineyard closer, denser, and more regular than any that ever grew in
France. Except for one long, straight aisle no wider than the shoulders
of a man it was like a solid mass of greenery, thicker than a jungle,
and oppressive from the evenness of its altitude. Claude felt smothered,
not only by the heat, but by this compact luxuriance that dwarfed him,
and which was climbing, climbing still. It was prodigious. In its way it
was grotesque. It was like something grown by magic. But a few weeks
previous there had been nothing here but the smooth green pavement of
cheerful little plants that at a distance looked like jade or malachite.
Now, all of a sudden, as it were, there was this forest of rank verdure,
sprung with a kind of hideous rapidity, stifling, overpowering,
productive with a teeming, incredible fecundity. Low down near the earth
the full-grown fruit, green with the faintest tip of gold, hung heavy,
indolent, luscious, derisively cool to touch and taste in this
semi-tropical