by main force she never gets any decent rest.  Why, she’s hardly ever in her room before two in the morning.  It’s almost a form of madness with her, this ceaseless round.  I can’t prevent it.  I’m a busy man myself.”  He suddenly got to his feet with a jerk and stood looking down at her with sombre eyes.  “I’m a busy man,” he repeated.  “I have my ambitions, and I work for them.  I work hard.  But the one thing I want more than anything else on earth is a son to succeed me.  And if I can’t have that—­there’s nothing else that counts.”

He spoke with bitter vehemence, beating restlessly against his heel with his whip.  But Juliet still sat silent, looking out before her at the golden pink of the apple-trees in the sunset light with grave quiet eyes.

He went on morosely, egotistically, “I don’t know what I’ve done that I shouldn’t have what practically every labourer on my estate has got.  I may not have been absolutely impeccable in my youth.  I’ve never yet met a man who was—­with the single exception of Dick Green who hasn’t much temptation to be anything else.  But I’ve lived straight on the whole.  I’ve played the game—­or tried to.  And yet—­after five years of marriage—­I’m still without an heir, and likely to remain so, as far as I can see.  She says I’m mad on that point.”  He spoke resentfully.  “But after all, it’s what I married for.  I don’t see why I should be cheated out of the one thing I want most, do you?”

Juliet’s eyes came up to his, slowly, somewhat reluctantly.  “I’m afraid I haven’t much sympathy with you,” she said.

“You haven’t?” he looked amazed.

“No.”  She paused a moment.  “It was a pity you told me.  You see, a woman doesn’t care to be married—­just for that.”

“And what do you suppose she married me for?” he demanded indignantly.  “Do you think she was in love with me—­a man thirty years older than herself?  Oh, I assure you, there were never any illusions on that score!  I had a good deal to offer her, and she jumped at it.”

Juliet gave a slight shiver, and abruptly his manner changed.

“I’m sorry.  Put my foot in it again, have I?  You’ll have to forgive me, please.  No, I shouldn’t have told you.  But you’ve got such a kind look about you—­as if you’d understand.”

She was touched in spite of herself.  She got up quickly and faced him.  “What I can’t understand,” she said, a ring of deep feeling in her voice, “is how anyone can possibly barter their happiness, their self-respect, all that is most worth having, for this world’s goods, this world’s ambitions, and expect to come out of it anything but losers.  Oh, I know it’s done every day.  People fight and scramble—­yes, and grovel in the mud—­for what they think is gold; and when they’ve got it, it’s only the basest alloy.  Some of them never find it out.  Others do—­and break their hearts.”

He stared at her.  “You speak as one who knows.”