“It’s changed since you were here, Gavan. Ah! time goes--it goes. Poor Rachel! we lost her five years ago. If Eppie didn’t look after us so well we should be lonely, Barbara and I. We seldom get away now. Too old to care for change. But Eppie always gives us three or four months, and a letter once a week while she’s away. She puts us first. This is home, she says. She sees clever people at Alicia Waring’s, has the world at her feet,--you’ve heard, no doubt,--but she loves Kirklands best. She gardens with me--a great gardener Eppie, but she is good at anything she sets herself to; she drives her aunt about, she reads to us and sings to us,--you have heard of her singing, too,--keeps us in touch with life. Eppie is a wonderful person for sharing happiness,” the general monologued, looking about the fire-lit room; and Gavan felt that, from this point of view, some of the little Eppie might still have survived. “So you have given up the idea of the House?” the general went on. “I’m no good at it,” said Gavan; “I’ve proved it.” “Proved it? Nonsense. Wait till you are fifty before saying that. Why, you’ve everything in your favor. You weren’t enough in earnest; that was the trouble. You didn’t care enough; you played into your opponents’ hands. The British public doesn’t understand idealism or irony. Eppie told us all about it.” “Eppie? How did Eppie know?” He found himself using her little name as a matter of course. “She knows everything,” the general rejoined, with his air of happy, derived complacency; “even when she’s not in England, she never loses touch. Eppie is very much behind the scenes.” The simile recalled to Gavan his own vision of the stage and the waiting figure. “Even behind my scenes!” he ejaculated, smiling at so much omniscience. “From the moment you came into public life, yes.” “And she knows why I failed at it? Idealism and irony?” “That’s what she says; and I usually find Eppie right.” The general, after the half-humorous declaration, had a pause, and before leaving his guest, he added, “Right, except about her own affairs. She is a child there yet.” Eppie’s disaster must have been keenly felt and keenly resented at Kirklands. The general made no further reference to it and Gavan asked no question. There was a fire, a lamp, and several clusters of candles in the long, dark library when Gavan entered it an hour later, so that the darkness was full of light; yet he had wandered slowly down its length, looking about him at the faded tan, russet, and gilt of well-remembered books, at the massive chairs and tables, all in their old places, all so intimately familiar, before seeing that he was not alone in the room.