This attitude makes for tranquillity. Before long he felt merely an injured martyr. His brain cleared. He stood deep in thought before the only other picture that the bare room boasted—the Demeter of Cnidus. Outside the sun was sinking, and its last rays fell upon the immortal features and the shattered knees. Sweet-peas offered their fragrance, and with it there entered those more mysterious scents that come from no one flower or clod of earth, but from the whole bosom of evening. He tried not to be cynical. But in his heart he could not regret that tragedy, already half-forgotten, conventionalized, indistinct. Of course death is a terrible thing. Yet death is merciful when it weeds out a failure. If we look deep enough, it is all for the best. He stared at the picture and nodded. Stephen, who had met his visitor at the station, had intended to drive him back there. But after their spurt of temper he sent him with the boy. He remained in the doorway, glad that he was going to make money, glad that he had been angry; while the glow of the clear sky deepened, and the silence was perfected, and the scents of the night grew stronger. Old vagrancies awoke, and he resolved that, dearly as he loved his house, he would not enter it again till dawn. “Goodnight!” he called, and then the child came running, and he whispered, “Quick, then! Bring me a rug.” “Good-night,” he repeated, and a pleasant voice called through an upper window, “Why good-night?” He did not answer until the child was wrapped up in his arms. “It is time that she learnt to sleep out,” he cried. “If you want me, we’re out on the hillside, where I used to be.” The voice protested, saying this and that. “Stewart’s in the house,” said the man, “and it cannot matter, and I am going anyway.” “Stephen, I wish you wouldn’t. I wish you wouldn’t take her. Promise you won’t say foolish things to her. Don’t—I wish you’d come up for a minute—” The child, whose face was laid against his, felt the muscles in it harden. “Don’t tell her foolish things about yourself—things that aren’t any longer true. Don’t worry her with old dead dreadfulness. To please me—don’t.” “Just tonight I won’t, then.” “Stevie, dear, please me more—don’t take her with you.” At this he laughed impertinently. “I suppose I’m being kept in line,” she called, and, though he could not see her, she stretched her arms towards him. For a time he stood motionless, under her window, musing on his happy tangible life. Then his breath quickened, and he wondered why he was here, and why he should hold a warm child in his arms. “It’s time we were starting,” he whispered, and showed the sky, whose orange was already fading into green. “Wish everything goodnight.” “Good-night, dear mummy,” she said sleepily. “Goodnight, dear house. Good-night, you pictures—long picture—stone lady. I see you through the window—your faces are pink.”