I stole across the lawn to where two stooping figures sat with their backs towards me. Halfway across I halted, gazing over my shoulder. Through the study-window, with ivy aslant the pane, I saw my father. His hair was white. In the stoop of his shoulders was the sign of creeping age. He did not look up to notice me; he had never had time. As the years went by I grew proudly sorry for him. I saw him now, as I had seen him so many times when I paused to glance up from my play. He was cramped above his desk, writing, writing. His face was turned away. His head was supported on his hand as though weary. _He_ was the prisoner now; it was I who held the key of escape. How oddly life had changed! Ruthita saw me. Her sewing fell from her lap. In a trice she was racing towards me. “You! You!” she cried. Her thin arms went round me. Suddenly I felt miles distant from her because I was unworthy. “Why did you come back?” she asked me. There was a note of anxiety in her voice. She searched my bronzed face. “To see you, chickabiddy.” “No, no. That’s not true,” she whispered; but she pressed her cheek against my shoulder as though she were willing to distrust her own denial. “You can get on quite well without me, Dannie; you would never have come back to see me only.” The Snow Lady touched me on the elbow. Her eyes were excited and full of questioning. She gazed quickly from me to Ruthita. With a self-consciousness which was foreign to both of us, we dropped our eyes under her gaze and separated. Ruthita excused herself, saying that she would go and tell my father. The Snow Lady offered me her cheek; it was soft and velvety. Slipping her arm through mine, she led me away to the apple-tree under which they had been sitting. She was still the frail little Madam Favart, half-frivolous, half-saintly; my father’s intense reticence had subdued, but not quite silenced her gaiety. Her silver hair was as abundant as ever and her figure as girlish; but her face had tired lines, especially about the eyes. I sat myself on the grass at her feet. “How is he?” I asked. “Your father?” “Yes.” “Much the same. He doesn’t change.” “Is he still at the same old grind?” She nodded. “But, Dante,” she said, “you look thinner and older.” “That’s the heat and the rapid traveling. A day or two’s rest’ll put me right.” She dropped her sewing into her lap and, pressing her cool hand against my forehead, drew me back against her. It was a mothering love-trick of hers that had lasted over from my childhood. “What brought you home so suddenly, laddie?” Her hand slipped to my shoulder. I bent aside and kissed it. “To see you and Ruthie. I had something to tell you.” She narrowed her eyes shrewdly. “You’ve been worried for nearly a year now. I’ve noticed it.” “Have I shown it so plainly?” “Plainly enough for me to notice. Is it something to do with a woman? But of course it is--at your age only a woman could make you wear a solemn face.”