ith me," said Stephen, and they laid it
flowerlike on the stream. Gravel and tremulous weeds leapt into sight,
and then the flower sailed into deep water, and up leapt the two arches
of a bridge. "It'll strike!" they cried; "no, it won't; it's chosen the
left," and one arch became a fairy tunnel, dropping diamonds. Then it
vanished for Rickie; but Stephen, who knelt in the water, declared that
it was still afloat, far through the arch, burning as if it would burn
forever.

XXXIV

The carriage that Mrs. Failing had sent to meet her nephew returned from
Cadchurch station empty. She was preparing for a solitary dinner when
he somehow arrived, full of apologies, but more sedate than she had
expected. She cut his explanations short. "Never mind how you got here.
You are here, and I am quite pleased to see you." He changed his clothes
and they proceeded to the dining-room.

There was a bright fire, but the curtains were not drawn. Mr. Failing
had believed that windows with the night behind are more beautiful than
any pictures, and his widow had kept to the custom. It was brave of her
to persevere, lumps of chalk having come out of the night last June. For
some obscure reason--not so obscure to Rickie--she had preserved them
as mementoes of an episode. Seeing them in a row on the mantelpiece,
he expected that their first topic would be Stephen. But they never
mentioned him, though he was latent in all that they said.

It was of Mr. Failing that they spoke. The Essays had been a success.
She was really pleased. The book was brought in at her request, and
between the courses she read it aloud to her nephew, in her soft yet
unsympathetic voice. Then she sent for the press notices--after all
no one despises them--and read their comments on her introduction. She
wielded a graceful pen, was apt, adequate, suggestive, indispensable,
unnecessary. So the meal passed pleasantly away, for no one could so
well combine the formal with the unconventional, and it only seemed
charming when papers littered her stately table.

"My man wrote very nicely," she observed. "Now, you read me something
out of him that you like. Read 'The True Patriot.'"

He took the book and found: "Let us love one another. Let our children,
physical and spiritual, love one another. It is all that we can do.
Perhaps the earth will neglect our love. Perhaps she will confirm it,
and suffer some rallying-point, spire, mound, for the new generations to
cherish."