"Very well, mother.... Is anybody going to sit up with Valerie?" "Stephanie insists on sleeping on the couch at the foot of her bed. I offered to sit up but she wouldn't let me.... You'll see that I'm called if anything happens, won't you?" "Yes. Good-night, mother." He kissed her, stood a moment looking at the closed door behind which lay Valerie--tried to realise that she did lie there under the same roof-tree that sheltered father, mother, and sister--then, with a strange thrill in his heart, he went downstairs. Cameron passed him, on his upward way to slumberland. "How's Miss West?" he asked cheerfully. "Asleep, I think. Billy Ogilvy expects her to be all right in the morning." "Good work! Glad of it. Tell your governor; he's been inquiring." "Has he?" said Neville, with another thrill, and went into the living room where his father sat alone before the whitening ashes of the fire. "Well, father!" he said, smiling. The older man turned his head, then turned it away as his son drew up a chair and laid a stick across the andirons. "It's turned a little chilly," he said. "I have known of many a frost in May," said his father. There was a silence; then his father slowly turned and gazed at him. "How is--Miss West?" he asked stiffly. "Billy Ogilvy says she will be all right to-morrow, father." "Was she injured by her unfortunate experience?" "A little briar-torn, I'm afraid. Those big beech woods are rather a puzzle to anybody who is not familiar with the country. No wonder she became frightened when it grew dark." "It was--very distressing," nodded his father. They remained silent again until Mr. Neville rose, took off his spectacles, laid aside _The Evening Post_, and held out his hand. "Good-night, my son." "Good-night, father." "Yes--yes--good-night--good-night--to many, many things, my son; old-fashioned things of no value any more--of no use to me, or you, or anybody any more." He retained his son's hand in his, peering at him, dim-eyed, without his spectacles: "The old order passes--the old ideas, the old beliefs--and the old people who cherished them--who know no others, needed no others.... Good-night, my son." But he made no movement to leave, and still held to his son's hand: "I've tried to live as blamelessly as my father lived, Louis--and as God has given me to see my way through life.... But--the times change so--change so. The times are perplexing; life grows noisier, and stranger and more complex and more violent every day around us--and the old require repose, Louis. Try to understand that." "Yes, father." The other looked at him, wearily: "Your mother seems to think that your happiness in life depends on--what we say to you--this evening. Stephanie seems to believe it, too.... Lily says very little.... And so do I, Louis--very little ... only enough to--to wish you--happiness. And so--good-night." CHAPTER XV