"The fact is, Harry," said Garrett, "you haven't changed quite as fast as the place has. You'll see the point of view in a few weeks' time." He felt unreasonably, ridiculously angry. They were all treating him as a child, as some one who would grow up one day perhaps, but was, at present at any rate, immature in thought and word; even with Robin there was a half-implied superiority. "But the Cove!" he cried vehemently. "Is it nothing to any of you? After all that it has been to us all our lives, to our people, to the whole place, are you going to root it out and destroy it simply because the town isn't quite big enough to put up all the trippers that burden it in the summer? Don't you see what you will lose if you do? I suppose you think that I am sentimental, romantic, but upon my word I can't see that you have improved Pendragon very much in all these twenty years. It was charming once--a place with individuality, independence; now it is like anywhere else--a miniature Brighton." He knew that he was wasting his words. There was a pause, and he felt that they were all three laughing at him--yes, Robin as well. He had only made a fool of himself; they could not understand how much he had expected during those weary years of waiting--how much he had expected and how much he had missed. Clare looked round the room and was relieved to find that only Beldam was present. If one of the family was bent on being absurd, it was as well that there should only be one of the servants to hear him. "You know that you are to be on your trial this afternoon, Harry?" she said. "My trial?" he repeated, bewildered. "Yes--it's my at-home day, you know--first Thursdays--and, of course, they'll all come to see you. We shall have the whole town----" She looked at him a little anxiously; so much depended on how he behaved, and she wasn't completely reassured by his present manner. If he astonished them all this afternoon by saying things about the Cove like that, it would be too terrible! "How horrible!" he said, laughing. "I'm very much afraid that I shan't do you justice, Clare. I'm no good at small conversation." His treating it so lightly made it worse, and she wondered how she could force him to realise the seriousness of it. "All the nicest people in Pendragon," she said; "and they are rather ridiculously critical, and of course they talk." He looked at her and laughed. "I wish they were Maories," he said, "I shouldn't be nearly so frightened!" She leant over the table to emphasise her words. "But it really does make a difference, Harry. First impressions count a lot. You'll be nice to them, won't you?" The laugh had left his eyes. It was serious, as he knew. He had had no idea that he would have, so to speak, "funked" it so. It was partly, of course, because of Robin. He did not want to make a fool of himself before the boy. He was already beginning to realise what were the things that counted with Robin.