The old man laid a hand on his. "Wade out into it!" he said. "Trust the stream! It'll carry you--if you'll let it." Ernie's mother too, curiously sure in some of her intuitions, felt his trouble, was aware of his new-found courage, and came to him. It had always been so with her from his childhood. Whenever he put out his strength she rallied to him in full force. When in weakness he fell away she left him. It was as though all her woman's power of buttressing had been given to the father, so that there was nothing left to satisfy the demands of her seeking elder son. That evening she gave him roses from her little garden before he went, and watched him round the corner. Then she retreated indoors, and standing thin-shouldered in the door of the study, shot at the long loose figure by the fire one of her customary crude remarks. "He's hanging on the Cross," she said. Edward Caspar stared into the grate. "He'll rise again," he answered. CHAPTER XL CLASH OF MALES Ernie, carrying his roses, mounted the bus. Opposite the _Star_, he marked a gaunt figure, standing on the steps of the Manor-house. There was something of the kindly vulture about the figure's pose that was strangely familiar. Ernie leapt to sudden life. It was the Colonel--without his sun-helmet. Ernie was off the bus in a moment, and sidling shyly up to the object of his worship. The Colonel, waiting on the steps, watched the antics of the approaching devotee with satirical indifference. "Contemplating assault or adoration?" he asked mildly. Then he stooped, extending a skinny claw. "What, Caspar!" he called, his cadaverous face lighting up. "That's me, sir," grinned Ernie, wagging his tail with furious enthusiasm. Just then a chocolate-bodied car drove up, and Ernie was aware of Alf looking at him. The door of the car opened; and Captain Royal stepped out. "Ah, Colonel!" he cried in his brisk hearty voice. The Colonel laid a finger on the other's sleeve. "You remember Caspar, Royal?" he said. "I do," replied Royal briefly. "Coming in, sir?" as Mr. Trupp's door opened at last. Ernie turned down the hill, burning his white flare. The Captain's brutal insolence had gone home. The Colonel reported the incident to his wife that evening. "I could have struck the swine!" he said with unusual ferocity. "Conky Joe was right. He never was a white man. A piebald from birth, that feller." Mrs. Lewknor churned the incident in her mind. It was a slur on the Regiment, and therefore a capital offence. "What a cad!" she said. "Our dear Caspar too! Royal's the only officer in the Regiment would behave like that. Where's he stopping?" "My dear, where would Royal stop?" said the Colonel. "The Hohenzollern--Third Floor--where Caspar's working." He nodded his big head discreetly. "How do you know?" asked Mrs. Lewknor, eyeing him. "Trupp told me," replied the Colonel. Ernie returned to the Hotel with his roses.