"Leave me, and shut the door. I have all I can bear now. Leave me alone with my little one." CHAPTER XV Aix-les-Bains proved a successful prescription, and Judge Kent declared himself cured; but two silent women knew he could obtain only a modicum of sleep, and noted the fact that when the daily mail--nervously expected and handled--had been scanned he grew gay and chatty. After sixteen months on the continent, he settled for a while at Taormina, and here his companions were surprised to learn that his business agent had sold every foot of real estate he owned in America, including the Herriott house in New York, and the old homestead built in an elm grove among the bleak, stony hills of New England. "Father, when was the house in Thirty-eighth Street sold?" "Soon after we reached Aix." "And you never told me?" "Why should I? Herriott might cherish some sentiment about it, but the matter touched you in no way." "At least I should like to know who bought it." "Herriott. While at Greyledge I told him it would be on the market, and he instructed his agent to make the purchase." "Had I known in time, Mr. Whitfield might have invested some idle money. I like those cool, big, old-fashioned rooms." "I entertain no doubt that sooner or later they will be yours. Mrs. Mitchell, may I trouble you for the 'Figaro' at your elbow?" "Who owns the old homestead that has belonged to some Kent for two hundred years?" "The town has grown until it needs a juvenile 'reformatory,' and one is now in course of erection where my old barn stood so long. A better site could not have been found, or one more vigilantly patrolled by orthodox puritan ghosts." "Have you no regrets when you think of strangers possessing the little family burying ground where some of your ancestors long ago crumbled to dust?" Eglah lifted her hand to brush away an orange petal that drifted down to the velvet collar of his coat, and Eliza knew that the perpendicular line between her brows indexed profound dissatisfaction. "Regrets are unprofitable, and what remains of my life must pay dividends. My dear, will you kindly hand me my match box?" "Then you are homeless?" Smiling blandly, he bowed to her. "I trust not, while my daughter owns thousands of acres of the finest land in the South." "Do you forget how often you have declared you would never again live south of Washington?" "I forget nothing, but circumstances are not as fixed as parallels of latitude, and changed conditions demand readjustment of plans. Irrevocability travelled into limbo with ancient Medes and Persians, and after the first of May I hope I may count upon the traditional hospitality of Nutwood. You are of age, and have the right to occupy it."