On the last night of the party, when all would disperse next morning, Colin meant to call his attention to that, and, very carefully, to the contract on which it depended. He knew now that Dennis would not leap to it, as he himself, at that age, would have done, but, so he reflected, the existence of Raymond, his elder twin, had even then schooled him in hate. Dennis had had no such schooling and incentive.... But this was not all that that night had revealed. It had revealed in himself a tenderness altogether alien to him. Even though he had been in the act of loosing on the boy the force which was to befriend him, his mere physical distress had sufficed to make him abandon that, and give him the protection he sought. All this week that memory had lain in his mind, and, below the occupations of the busy days, he had impatiently considered it, cavilling at his own faint-heartedness. Probably, certainly indeed, he had done wisely: the power with which he had sought to surround Dennis must come to him, not in this nightmare guise, but as a friendly and protecting influence; and to have continued then directing it on him would have been a great mistake. It might even have done some mental or spiritual hurt to the boy, for his whole nature had been up in arms to resist it, and who knew what deadly struggle might not have resulted? For the force which he had turned on him was no pretty toy-like drawing-room mesmerism, you could not play with it and try psychical experiments. It was a thing deadly and potent. Even when it was not resisted, but welcomed and embraced, its passion could manifest itself in disturbing and terrible ways, and Colin shuddered to think of Dennis in the grip of it in such manner as he had before now seen Vincenzo possessed when he served at the rites in the chapel. And Dennis had not yielded to it, he had struggled and fought.... But that, and Colin knew it, had not been the primary reason for his abandoning that midnight assault. The primary and instinctive reason had been that Dennis called to him with the insistent and compelling voice of love.... Strange, indeed, that he should have hearkened to it, for the voice of love was most unmusical in his ears, and made not melody but exasperating discord. Just so had it been with him when he came unperceived, on the day of his return home, into the gallery, and found Dennis and his mother there, happy and content for no reason except that they were together. At that moment (how quick Violet had been to notice it!) he had envied them, though he knew precisely what the ground of their happiness was.