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leaves. She was thrilled, by his sudden fierceness, and hearing from him the ‘three little words’ of the current revue song, felt herself becoming tumescent with a feeling of love beyond desire; holding him in her arms she felt that the earth was rocking, while involuntary cries came from her. And afterwards as she lay beside him staring at the sky beyond the canopies of the trees she was lapped in happiness that now her dream of having a child before she was twenty-one might be fulfilled. If she became pregnant she would go away without telling him, so that he would never feel burdened by her ugly presence, and have her baby alone in a remote cottage somewhere.
    They drove on to London in silence, and Phillip put her down by the underground station at Hammersmith Broadway.
    “Take care of yourself, dearest,” she said, hoping he would want to kiss her goodbye. But all he said was, “I’ll telephone you as soon as I know what I’m doing. I’m going to see my parents, who are coming to live at Fawley, then I’ll be at the Barbarian Club. Would you care to meet me there tonight?”
    “Oh yes!”
    *
    Phillip felt guilty when he saw how much his mother was looking forward to a new life, as she called it, among her children’s little ones. Had Lucy spoken to him about having Doris’ two boys when she went back to teaching?
    “Well, as you know, Mother, I don’t get on very well witheither Doris or Elizabeth. Also—now please don’t be upset—Lucy and I may not be living at Rookhurst. You see,” he went on, speaking quietly to control a feeling of exasperation, “all the estate is sold, including Skirr Farm, so we’ve got to give up the farmhouse. Then the brook, and the Longpond, all belong to the Army authorities, and there’ll be officers fishing for trout there. So I must move, to be beside a stream, to observe fish, before I can write about them. But we’ll be quite near.”
    “Oh, I am so relieved, my dear son.”
    How like a child she was, she had never really grown up——
    “You see, Phillip, your father is a very lonely man, and looks forward to going for walks with you, where he walked with his father when he was a boy. He talks about the walled garden, too, and how he will be able to grow fruit again, against the walls. Now tell me all about Lucy, and Billy, and little Peter and Rosamund——Oh, I cannot tell you how I am looking forward to seeing them all together, and in that lovely country, Phillip. I am counting the days to next spring, when Father retires from the office! Oh, must you go so soon? Won’t you wait to see your father? He will be so disappointed. Yes, I’ll give him your love, my dear son. You are a good son to us, we can never thank you enough for inviting us both to live at Fawley.”
    “Oh, Mother! You’re doing me a favour, by occupying part of it.”
    *
    An old soldier wearing the riband of the 1914 Star arrived on a bicycle one morning when Phillip was looking over the new house with Billy. He had a most woeful expression, as though he had found himself homeless after some years of fancied security. This indeed was the case.
    “Sir, permission to speak to you. Rippingall, sir, at your service!”
    Phillip knew the soldierly address. He liked it. He took the old fellow into the house. After a cup of tea, he decided that he was that rare thing, a gentle soul. Also he was of a literary turn of mind, having read Shakespeare, Tolstoi, and other classical writers.
    Rippingall explained that he had been the gardener and house-parlourman to the old vicar of Flumen Monachorum, who had allowed for his occasional bouts of malaria; but the new vicar—“His Reverence bears the name of Scrimgeour, sir, I expect you know the gentleman, he comes from Liverpool, I believe”—had shown him no sympathy after one of his bouts, and had told him to go.
    Rippingall had a pinched, bluish look about him, and was so earnest in offering himself for work of any kind that Phillip took him