All this was not so much a train of thought in Colin’s mind, as a flash of perception that vibrated through it at the sound of the bell in the turret of the chapel, and, dismissing principles, he let himself into the door on the garden front that opened into the long gallery. Principles would take care of themselves provided your practice was in accordance with them, and, with the thrill of home-coming to this beloved Stanier, he stepped out of the glimmering dusk into the lit house. He got one comprehensive glance at the two who were there before his entrance was perceived. Violet was sitting in a low chair by the fireplace at the far end of the gallery, her face all alight with love, and on the floor, full length in front of the fire, was Dennis lying. His head was bent back and he looked up into his mother’s face, as he told her something in his boyish voice, high treble one moment, and suddenly cracking into a man’s tones. Whatever it was that he said, it made her suddenly burst into laughter, and she threw herself back in her chair. “Oh, Dennis, how wicked of you,” she said. “Go on, darling. What did the master do?” Colin stood very still. Was it really Violet who could laugh like that, with that pure abandonment to amusement? Was it she who shone with that serene and radiant love?... She sat up again after that burst of laughter, and saw him. In an instant her face changed to the face he knew. It changed from the face of a mother, girlish still, though that big boy sprawled there, to the frozen beauty which she presented to the world. No faintest glint of laughter lingered on her mouth or in her eyes. And yet, amazingly, they were still alight with love. Something that had beamed there for Dennis still beamed there for him, though it was shrouded, like a gleam of fire through smoke, by the blight and the frost. “Ah, Colin,” she said. “There you are! Get up, Dennis: here’s your father.” For a moment, sharp as a stabbed nerve, and coming from some ice-bound cave of consciousness, a pang of regret shot through Colin that it was not in his nature, nor in theirs, that he could join the group of mother and son, and partake of their mood, their laughter and their ease, and all that it implied. They looked so jolly, and his hunger for pleasure always envied those who were enjoying themselves, for all enjoyment ought to belong to him. But the instantaneousness with which Violet’s care-free laughter had withered from her face, shewed that she instinctively recognized the inconceivableness of that. It was not to be wondered at, after all: she always froze in his presence.