"Yes," he drew a little nearer to her and his cold face gained a slight colour. "In those days when a son--or a grandson--was born to the head of a house it was a serious and impressive affair." "Yes." And he knew she at once recalled her own son--and George in Flanders. "It meant new generations, and generations counted for decent dignity as well as power. A farmer would say with huge pride, 'Me and mine have worked the place for four generations,' as he would say of the owner of the land, 'Him and his have held it for six centuries.' Centuries and generations are in danger of no longer inspiring special reverence. It is the future and the things to be which count." "The things to be--yes," the Duchess said and knew that he was drawing near the thing he had to say. "I suppose I was born a dogged sort of devil," he went on almost in a monotone. "The fact did not manifest itself to me until I came to the time when--all the rest of me dropped into a bottomless gulf. That perhaps describes it. I found myself suddenly standing on the edge of it. And youth, and future, and belief in the use of hoping and real enjoyment of things dropped into the blackness and were gone while I looked on. If I had not been born a dogged devil I should have blown my brains out. If I had been born gentler or kinder or more patient I should perhaps have lived it down and found there was something left. A man's way of facing things depends upon the kind of thing he was born. I went on living _without_--the rest of myself. I closed my mouth and not only my mouth but my life--as far as other men and women were concerned. When I found an interest stirring in me I shut another door--that was all. Whatsoever went on did it behind a shut door." "But there were things which went on?" the Duchess gently suggested.