The tea came and they were silent while the maid set it out. Augustine had thrown himself into a chair and stared before him. Sir Hugh, very much in possession, kept his place before the fire. Catching Amabel's eye he smiled at her. He was completely assured. How should he not be? What, for his seeing, could stand between them now? When the maid was gone and Amabel was making tea, he came and stood over her, his hands in his pockets, his handsome head bent to her, talking lightly, slightly jesting, his voice pitched intimately for her ear, yet not so intimately that any unkindness of exclusion should appear. Augustine could hear all he said and gauge how deep was an intimacy that could wear such lightness, such slightness, as its mask. Augustine, meanwhile, looked at neither his mother nor Sir Hugh. Turned from them in his chair he put out his hand for his tea and stared before him, as if unseeing and unhearing, while he drank it. It was for her sake, Amabel knew, that Sir Hugh, raising his voice presently, as though aware of the sullen presence, made a little effort to lift the gloom. "What sort of a time have you had, Augustine?" he asked. "Was the weather at Haversham as bad as everywhere else?" Augustine did not turn his head in replying:--"Quite as bad, I fancy." "You and young Wallace hammered at metaphysics, I suppose." "We did." "Nice lad." To this Augustine said nothing. "They're such a solemn lot, the youths of this generation," said Sir Hugh, addressing Amabel as well as Augustine: "In my day we never bothered ourselves much about things: at least the ones I knew didn't. Awfully empty and frivolous. Augustine and his friends would have thought us. Where we used to talk about race horses they talk about the Absolute,--eh, Augustine? We used to go and hear comic-operas and they go and hear Brahms. I suppose you do go and hear Brahms, Augustine?" Augustine maintained his silence as though not conceiving that the sportive question required an answer and Amabel said for him that he was very fond of Brahms. "Well, I must be off," said Sir Hugh. "I hope your heart will ache ever so little for me, Amabel, when you think of the night you've turned me out into." "Oh--but--I don't turn, you out,"--she stammered, rising, as, in a gay farewell, he looked at her. "No? Well, I'm only teasing. I could hardly have managed to stay this time--though,--I might have managed, Amabel--. I'll come again soon, very soon," said Sir Hugh. "No," her hand was in his and she knew that Augustine had turned his head and was looking at them:--"No, dear Hugh. Not soon, please. I will write." Sir Hugh looked at her smiling. He glanced at Augustine; then back at her, rallying her, affectionately, threateningly, determinedly, for her foolish feints. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. "Write, if you want to; but I'm coming," he said. He nodded to Augustine and left the room. IX