It was over; and all three were relieved and thankful. But the note of triumph surging through their hearts was still dominant. Scarcely a word had passed between them in the brief run from Downing Street to Smith Square. Their hearts were as yet too full, and the memory of the words addressed to them by Sir Meeston and his colleagues was still too poignant to permit of normal conditions. Vita had leant back in the car, with her husband's arm linked through hers, and one of his powerful hands clasped in hers. She sat thus with thought teeming, and a heart thrilling with an unspeakable joy, and happiness, and triumph, all for the man at her side. Her own share in the events through which they had passed was entirely forgotten by her. This man at her side filled her whole focus. He was all in all to her, as she felt he was all in all to the cause in which they had worked. It was perhaps the profoundest and proudest moment of her life. It was a moment of perfect happiness. All she had ever dreamed of was hers; and the hand of the man she worshipped was even now, warm and strong, clasped tightly in her own. Hers to keep; hers to lean on; hers never to yield so long as their lives should last. In the house they passed up into the small drawing-room, and, for a few moments, they sat there before retiring. Slowly the spell of the day's events fell from them. It was finally Sir Andrew who released them from it. He gazed across at Vita with twinkling eyes. His smile was full of kindly tenderness. "Now, perhaps, I shall have time to appreciate the fact that at last I am the happy possessor of a beautiful daughter as well as a headstrong son," he said. Then, after the briefest hesitation: "Vita, my dear," he went on, in his old-fashioned manner, while his gaze took in the radiant beauty turned abruptly towards him, "it seems to me that the most wonderful thing in the world has happened to me. The long, lonely life seems to have entirely passed. I mean the loneliness which only a man can feel who is deprived for all time of the association of his own womankind. Now at last I can draw deep comfort from the reflection of Ruxton's happiness. Now, however slight my claim, I can nevertheless _claim_ something of a woman's filial regard. The grey of life has been tinted for me since you have chosen to make my boy happy, and as time goes on I can see that tint develop into the roseate hue of a happiness I somehow never thought to feel again. Bless you, my dear, for coming into an old man's life; and you, too, my boy," he went on, turning to the smiling Ruxton, "for having given me such a daughter. I feel this is the moment for saying this. The work is done now in workmanlike fashion, and the little triumph of it all makes me want to tell you of this thing that I feel." Vita impulsively left her husband's side. She rose from the settee and crossed over to her second father and held out both her hands.