A native servant came down with a message that Lord Sombrewater would be glad if Ambrose would step up to the Pavilion. Ambrose therefore left the group on the shore of the Lake, thinking that the harmony of the party was indeed sadly disturbed, and the serene lawns and fine brooding trees disfigured by their quarrelling. Lord Sombrewater was with Lychnis, she moody, he severe. But it was his custom to approach a quarrel with his daughter in a business-like spirit, and he had not allowed the matter to interrupt his eleven o’clock cigar. He motioned Ambrose to a seat by a little lacquer table. “Good-morning, Ambrose. I want you to know that there are now no restrictions on my daughter’s liberty of movement. She may go where she likes and with whom she likes, and I”—he spoke without bitterness—“I wash my hands of it. I admit that it was foolish to make rules for a daughter who takes as much notice of my wishes as the very solid gate-post of this Pavilion. Facts are facts. She has argued with me, and I think conclusively, that her life is her own. I have fully agreed that her friendship with Yuan is not a matter with which I am closely concerned. We must face the facts, and I see that it is useless to attempt to control her. I want you to convey this to the others. Now, Lychnis, I have done what you have asked. Will you kindly leave us?” “I never said that you do not come closely into my life. You do. I want you to.” He waved her away. Ambrose knew that he would never hear in what terms they had quarrelled. But this dismissal, he perceived, was a retaliation on Lord Sombrewater’s part. If she had no place for her father, if she desired to be independent, she would be independent, very much so, and alone; she should feel the cold. Her eyes, Ambrose saw, filled with tears as she went through to her green-and-gold bedroom, and there was no turning on her hips at the door to make a friendly gesture. No doubt she felt that another harbour was closing to her. “When I made a rule that she should not do this or that, I made a mistake,” said his lordship, and his cigar had gone out. “Lychnis makes her own rules as she goes along. She acts by an inner light, and cannot see why others should have any views on the matter except the views that are so clear to her. No doubt she is right, as maybe we all are, in some deep sense; but it is hard, when she does these strange things, for those who have merely to watch and trust. I find it difficult, Ambrose. I love my daughter. I am jealous, and find it hard to be shut out from her inner life. If I were in her heart, no doubt I should agree that whatever she did was good. I should know what was going to happen, and I should not now be afraid as to where the necessity under which she doubtless acts might be going to lead her. I am honoured, as one should be, for having created a thing that is useless and beautiful ... but not, very naturally, by the thing. What do you say?”