"Ah, that's good"--he sank back on the pillows again. "I'm going to die, you know, and I'm lonely. It's damned gloomy--got to die--don't want to--but got to." He felt for his son's hand, found it, and held it. Then he passed off again into half-conscious sleep, and Harry watched, his hand in his father's and his thoughts with the girl and the boy who had rejected him rather than with the old man who had accepted him. CHAPTER XIII Meanwhile there was Robin--and he had been spending several very unhappy days. In the gloom of his room, alone and depressed, he had been passing things in review. He had never hitherto felt any very burning desire to know how he stood with the world; at school and Cambridge he had not thought at all--he had just, as it were, slid into things; his surroundings had grouped themselves of their own accord, making a delicately appreciative circle with no disturbing element. His friends had been of his own kind, the things that he had wished to do he had done, his thoughts had been dictated by set forms and customs. This had seemed to him, hitherto, an extraordinarily broad outlook; he had never doubted for a moment its splendid infallibility. He applied the tests of his set to the world at large, and the world conformed. Life was very easy on such terms, and he had been happy and contented. His meeting with Dahlia had merely lent a little colour to his pleasant complacency, and then, when it had threatened to become something more, he had ruthlessly cut it out. This should have been simple enough, and he had been at a loss to understand why the affair had left any traces. Friends of his at college had had such episodes, and had been mildly amused at their rapid conclusion. He had tried to be mildly amused at the conclusion of his own affair, but had failed miserably. Why? ... he did not know. He must be sensitive, he supposed; then, in that case, he had failed to reach the proper standard.... Randal was never sensitive. But there had been other things.