Amid much merriment Vivien and Harry were put into the Nutley brougham, and the rest started to walk to the Lion, no more than half a mile from the gates of Halton. Belfield turned back into the house, smiling and shaking his head. The old, old moralizing was upon him again, in its hoary antiquity, its eternal power of striking the mind afresh. How good it all is--and how short! Elderly he said good-night to his elderly wife, and in elderly fashion packed himself off to bed. He was "sent" there under a sanction stronger, more ruthless, less to be evaded, than that which poor Vivien reluctantly obeyed. He chid himself; nobody but a poet has a right to abandon his mind to universal inevitable regrets, since only a poet's hand can fashion a fresh garland for the tomb of youth. Half Harry's charm lay in--perhaps half his dangers sprang from--an instinctive adaptability; he was seldom out of tune with his company. With the bold he was bold; towards the timid he displayed a chivalrous reserve. This latter had always been his bearing towards Vivien, even in the early days of impulsive single-hearted devotion. It did not desert him even to-night, although there was a stirring in his blood, roused perhaps by the mimic reproduction of old-time gaieties with which the Nun proposed to enliven Meriton--a spirit of riot and revolt, of risk and adventure in the realm of feeling. He had little prospect of satisfying that impulse, but he might find some solace in merry revelry with his friends. Somehow, when more closely considered, the revelry did not satisfy. Good-fellowship was not what his mood was asking; for him at least the entertainment at the Lion offered no more, whatever tinge of romance might adorn it for Billy Foot. But he talked gaily to Vivien as they drove to Nutley--of the trip they were to make, of the house they were to hire for the winter and the ensuing season (he would in all likelihood be in Parliament by then), of their future life together. There was no woman save Vivien in his mind, neither Isobel nor another. He had no doubts of his recovered loyalty; but he was in some danger of recognizing it ruefully, as obligation and necessity, rather than as satisfaction or even as achievement. Vivien had grown knowing about him. She knew when she, or something, or things in general, did not satisfy his mood. "I'm glad you're going to have a merry evening to-night," she said. "And I'm almost glad I'm sent to bed! It'll do you good to forget all about me for a few hours." "You think I shall?" he protested gallantly. "Oh yes!" she answered, laughing. "But I shall expect you to be all the more glad to see me again to-morrow." He laughed rather absently. "I expect those fellows will rather wake up the old Lion."