“Oh, you needn’t do that.  There’s a serpent in every Eden,” said Piers, with a mirthless laugh.

He did not seek to keep Crowther at arm’s length, but neither did he seem inclined for any closer intimacy.  His attitude neither invited nor repelled confidence.  Yet Crowther knew intuitively that his very indifference was in itself a barrier that might well prove insurmountable.

He walked in silence while Piers talked intermittently of various impersonal matters, drifting at length into silence himself.

In the western wing of the house a light burned at an upper window, and Crowther, still quietly observant, noted how at each turn Piers’ eyes went to that light as though drawn by some magnetic force.

Gently at length he spoke.  “She doesn’t look altogether robust, sonny.”

Piers started sharply as if something had pricked him.  “What?  Avery do you mean?  No, she isn’t over and above strong—­just now.”

He uttered the last two words as if reluctantly, yet as if some measure of pride impelled him.

Crowther’s hand pressed his arm, in mute sympathy.  “You are right to take care of her,” he said simply.  “And Piers, my lad, I want to tell you how glad I was to know that you were able to win her after all.  I somehow felt you would.”

It was his first attempt to pass that intangible barrier, and it failed.  Piers disregarded the words as if they had not reached him.

“I don’t know if I shall let her stay here through the winter,” he said.  “I am not sure that the place suits her.  It’s damp, you know; good hunting and so on, but a bit depressing in bad weather.  Besides I’d rather have her under a town doctor.  The new heir arrives in March,” he said, with a slight laugh that struck Crowther as unconsciously pathetic.

“I’m very pleased to hear it, sonny,” said Crowther.  “May he be the first of many!  What does Avery think about it?  I’ll warrant she’s pleased?”

“Oh yes, she’s pleased enough.”

“And you, lad?”

“Oh yes, I’m pleased too,” said Piers, but his tone lacked complete satisfaction and he added after a moment, “I’d rather have had her to myself a bit longer.  I’m a selfish brute, you know, Crowther.  I want all I can get—­and even that’s hardly enough to keep me from starvation.”

There was a note of banter in his voice, but there was something else as well that touched Crowther’s kindly heart.

“I don’t think Avery is the sort of woman to sacrifice her husband to her children,” he said.  “You will always come first, sonny,—­if I know her.”

“I couldn’t endure anything else,” said Piers, with sudden fire.  “She is the mainspring of my life.”

“And you of hers,” said Crowther.

Piers stopped dead in his walk and faced him.  “No,—­no, I’m not!” he said, speaking quickly, unrestrainedly.  “I’m a good deal to her, but I’m not that.  She gives, but she never offers.  If I went off on a journey round the world to-morrow, she’d see me go quite cheerfully, and she’d wait serenely till I came back again.  She’d never fret.  Above all, she’d never dream of coming to look for me.”