She smiled at him, avoiding Renny’s eyes that were bent on her. She went down the stairs ahead of them, hearing their slow progress behind. Ever since she had come to this house, she thought, she had seen very old people moving through that hall. First Renny’s grandmother who had lived to be a hundred, and now her two sons who seemed likely to achieve an equal age. And always there had been Renny at their side, accommodating his vigorous step to the creeping step of extreme old age, behaving as though all this burden were a pleasure to him; and yet how little it took to chafe him in other ways. His attitude toward all these ancients was admirable, she granted that, but for herself she sometimes felt suffocated. Even more of a strain, she thought, were those who were too young — Adeline, Dennis, and, when they were home from school, Roma and Archer. Piers’ little girl came every second day and was a spoilt child. Too many of those at Jalna, Alayne thought, were either too old or too young. She herself would not see her fiftieth birthday again — almost half her life had been spent at Jalna. For an instant the two moving slowly behind her faded from her consciousness and, in their place, she saw herself as she had first come under this roof — dead Eden’s bride — they two running lightly down the stairs together, hand in hand. For an instant she saw the light gleaming on Eden’s hair, heard his voice so clearly she wondered Renny did not raise his head to listen. But looking up from below, she saw his head bent as he guided his uncle’s steps. “Steady, now — steady,” he was saying. How happy she had been in those far-off days, and of how short duration had been that happiness. How far too soon her passion for Renny had, like a brilliant-hued, formidable plant, thrust aside the fragile flower of her love for Eden! And how still he was the lodestar and centre of her thoughts! How still the sight of his sculptured head, the line of his neck and shoulders as he descended the stair, moved her! He was saying, — “I weigh within five pounds of what I weighed the day I was married” — and Uncle Ernest was replying, — “Ah, you and I are not the sort to lose our figures. Now I weigh …”
Uncle Nicholas was heaving himself out of his chair with creakings and gruntings. She could not bring herself to go to his help. But he arrived safely at the door of the drawing-room without aid and gave her his warm, masculine smile. “He must have been a charmer when he was in his prime,” she thought, and went to him and linked her arm in his, but not with ostentatious helpfulness. He took hers, almost with the air of assisting her, and managed to straighten his back. “Been sitting too long,” he grunted.
Renny met them. “I was just coming to give you an arm, Uncle Nick,” he said, and his eves moved warily to Alayne’s face. It was set forward, ignoring him.
“We don’t need your help, do we, Alayne?” said Nicholas. He sniffed the appetizing smell in the dining room. “My, how nice!” he exclaimed. He moved zestfully toward his chair.
Adeline had placed the chipmunk carved by Bell in the centre of the table beside the silver dish of apples and grapes. The little creature, poised in an attitude between fright and daring, seemed about to drop the acorn he held to his breast and dart across the table.
“Very pretty, very pretty indeed,” said Ernest, leaning forward to look and dribbling riced potato from his trembling fork.
“A clever fellow, that young Bell,” agreed Nicholas.
Renny said, — “Bell likes Clapperton just about as well as we do. He’s a shy fellow, you know, and whenever Clapperton meets him on the road he stops him and pours out a lot of unwanted advice. Some day Bell will be roused to the point of telling him to mind his own business. I wish I might be there.”
The small chapped hand of Dennis was creeping across the tablecloth toward the chipmunk.
“Clapperton,” declared Nicholas sententiously, “is a horrid old humbug. He fancies himself as a lover of the countryside and doesn’t know one sort of tree from another.”
“He fancies himself as a lover of art,” sneered Ernest, “and you should see his pictures.”
“He’s gone into breeding pigs,” said Adeline, “and an entire litter has died. Raikes told me so. Raikes says he’s always interfering with the feeding.”
Alayne said, — “Mrs. Clapperton tells me that this new man is the best they’ve ever had. He has given them a feeling of security. I’m so glad, for they’ve had very bad luck.”
“Their D.P. is quite good,” put in Adeline, “though she hasn’t half a dozen words of English. She says ‘please’ and ‘can’t do,’ and ‘want to go home.’”
“Poor thing,” said Alayne.
The small hand reached the chipmunk. Dennis drew it to him in an ecstasy of pleasure and snuggled it beneath his chin.
“Now, sir,” said Ernest, with his clear blue eyes fixed on Dennis.
Dennis wriggled in the joy of possessing the chipmunk. He defied Adeline, clutching it tightly.
“Drop it,” she said, and uncurled his fingers. She set the chipmunk back in its place.
“Very annoying habit children have,” observed Nicholas, picking up the little animal, “of always wanting to handle things.”
“They should be taught better when they’re very small,” said Ernest.
“I have never known a child,” Alayne spoke in a detached tone, “so given to handling as Dennis.”
The little boy bent his head, turning his gaze inward, considering himself.
“I had a letter today,” said Renny, “from Finch.”
Dennis was alert to the name of his father.
“He’ll be coming home soon. Says he needs a rest. I expect that concert work takes a lot out of him. But then he’s the sort of chap that any sort of work takes a lot out of. He is not like the rest of us.”
“Favours his poor mother,” said Nicholas, mumbling on a bit of gristle.
“Do I favour my poor mother?” asked Dennis.
“You do and you don’t,” answered Ernest.
“If I gave you that answer would you call it straightforward?” asked Dennis.
Renny chuckled. “He’s got you cornered, Uncle Ernest.”
Unperturbed Ernest replied, — “The obligation to be straightforward ends at seventy, Dennis.”
“It will be nice to see Finch,” said Alayne.
“Why do people always come home when they’re tired?” asked Dennis.
Ernest eyed him repressively. “You finish your pudding, my boy, and stop asking questions.”
“How can I learn if I don’t ask questions?”
The eyes of the two great-uncles were on him. He subsided but his hand stole toward the chipmunk.
“It’s a curious thing,” said Renny, “how all my younger brothers but Piers had a bent for the artistic. There was Eden — a poet.”
“Poor dear boy.” Ernest drew a sigh remembering Eden.
Dennis asked, — “Was he poor because he was a poet or a poet because he was poor?”
Both great-uncles stared at him.
To make things better he asked, — “Was he a poor poet?”
“Certainly not,” answered Nicholas. “He wrote very fine poetry. If he’d lived he’d have made a great name for himself.”
Alayne sat silent, turning her wedding ring on her finger.
“Then there’s Finch,” Renny went on, “a musician. Has never cared much for anything but music.”
Ernest nodded assent. “If Finch were