Outwardly, things were not altered. His employer, though rushed home for the last three days, was generally, if not always postally, at least mentally out of reach. Helwise still hampered him with her activities, like a child pettishly dragging unwieldly toys for a walk and expecting the grown-up to carry them. Harriet’s bicycle still scraped his walls; the cares of the estate changed only in detail; the county work still clamoured. But he brought to it all fresh ardour and a new sense of peace, from what source he could not have told. Perhaps it was the new interest over at Watters; perhaps the gathering of strength from a big decision over-past. Just possibly it was the long moment of calm wherewith the gods soothe a man before they strike. He was at Watters a good deal, nowadays, more often, indeed, than he realised, unconsciously seeking the stimulation of Hamer’s vitality and courage. He still kept his difficulties to himself, after long habit, yet he often came away finding them solved. Except for his weakness for leeches, Hamer’s tram-horse philosophy was founded upon excellent common sense, and had nothing of Bluecaster’s nervous charity. He saw life pitifully, but never morbidly, and his remedies were for time and not for the moment alone. Lancaster left him braced not only to work but to feel, and to be glad of his capacity for both. On the other hand, he was of use to the older man in many ways, engineering him over social pitfalls, along the precipice of tradition and through the network of county relationship; while to Mrs. Shaw he was an everlasting support and stay. He knew the best methods of reconciling modern grates with ancient hearths; why the newspaper didn’t turn up, and what was wrong with the milk; how to re-tape Venetian blinds and bottle fruit, and where to buy the best blankets and hams; what was a tramp and what wasn’t; what you might say to your servants, and what you certainly might not; why it was wrong to tip the Force, and right to use steamers in apple-tarts; the neatest way of clearing cockroaches, and what the Government was going to do. But with Dandy he seemed to get very little further. He was often so absorbed that he forgot to speak to her, though he seldom forgot--unconsciously, perhaps--to look at her. He knew vaguely that he liked her, found her presence pleasing, and was grateful for her kindly acts; and sometimes, in some hour magnetised by Wiggie’s singing, he turned to her as to the woman of his dreams. But always he came back doggedly to his first impression of her in the Lane. She was not of his world--the world of the soul, where it walks alone until the silver fingers of its eternal mate make music on the thrilling door. She did not speak his language, or love his loves; and sometimes he would leave the beauty of Watters with a queer relief, to talk shop with Harriet under a shippon wall.