He was running up and down the lawn with the puppy in pursuit, pawing at him, nipping his calves, tripping him up. At first he bore it equably, but after a while stopped in distress, pushing at the dog with impotent delicate hands, nervously exclaiming and as if expostulating with him in a language of his own, but not once looking towards any of them for assistance. The puppy crouched before him, and all at once let out a sharp yelp of excitement. He put his hands up to his ears. His lip shook. ‘Damn that puppy!’ said Julian furiously. He strode over to his nephew and lifted him in his arms. ‘The boy’s tired, Mariella, and you know it, and there you sit, calmly, _calmly_,--and let that damn fool noisy puppy bully him and pester him and smash his nerves....’ He was white. He stared with naked antagonism at Mariella, and the air seemed to quiver and grow taut between them. She got up swiftly to catch the puppy and touched her son’s head in passing. ‘Poor Peter-boy,’ she said quietly. ‘Silly boy! It’s all right.’ ‘I must go,’ murmured Judith. It was unbearable. She must slip away and hide from the shame and shock of her own perception of the suppressed hysteria. ‘Must you go?’ Mariella smiled at her with a sort of sweet blankness. ‘Well--you must come again soon. Come often.’ ‘I’ll see you to the door,’ said Julian. ‘I’m taking the boy in.’ Without another word or look Mariella went away; and he marched off into the house, carrying the child; and Judith followed him, sick at heart. Everything had gone wrong. Martin and Roddy had not returned and she dared not seek them to say good-night. Alas, they would not care whether she did so or not since they had not been sufficiently interested in her to stay beside her. Even Martin did not want her, preferred Roddy. She had hoped to gain assurance enough to look at Roddy, once, calmly, and see him as he was; but in the few glances they had exchanged she had seen nothing but an unreality so poignant, so burning that it blurred her whole mind and forced her eyes to escape, helpless. To-night when she was in bed they would all come before her, haunting and tormenting, trebly indifferent and unpossessed now that this longed-for meeting was accomplished, a bitter and fruitless fact. Imagination at least had been fecund, it had fed itself:--but the reality was as sterile as stone. What might she have done, she wondered, that she had not done, how should she have looked in order to please them? Was it her clothes or her looks or her idiotic seriousness about college that had condemned her to them? Bleakly pondering, she followed Julian into the sitting room. He sat down at the piano with the boy on his knee, and began softly playing. Judith stood beside him. After a little the child flung his head back against Julian’s shoulder, raptly listening. When he did this Julian’s face smoothed itself out and all but smiled. He continued to play, then stopped and said: