His father nodded, satisfied.  “You are taking hold a great bit better,” he was obviously pleased.  “We must go over the whole iron situation with the Forsythes.  It’s time you and David stepped forward.  I am getting bothered by new complications; the thing is spreading out so rapidly—­steel and a thousand new methods and refinements.  And the English opposition; I’m afraid you’ll come into that.”

Ludowika did not again appear that evening, and Howat sat informally before a blazing hearth with his mother, Gilbert Penny and Caroline.  Myrtle had retired with a headache.  Howat felt pleasantly settled, almost middle-aged; he smoked a pipe with the deliberate gestures of his father.  He wondered at the loss of his old restlessness, his revolt from just such placid scenes as the present.  Never, he had thought, would he be caught, bound, with invidious affections, desires.  Howat, a black Penny!  He had been subjugated by a force stronger than his rebellious spirit.  Suddenly, recalling Ludowika’s doubt, he wondered if he would be a subject to it always.  All the elements of his captivity lay so entirely outside of him, beyond his power to measure or comprehend, that a feeling of helplessness came over him.  He again had the sense of being swept twisting in an irresistible flood.  But his confusion was dominated by one great assurance—­nothing should deprive him of Ludowika.  An intoxicating memory invaded him, touched every nerve with delight and a tyrannical hunger.  His fibre seemed to crumble, his knees turn to dust.  Years ago he had been poisoned by berries, and limpness almost like this had gone softly, treacherously, through him.

VIII

They entered into a period of secret contentment and understanding.  Ludowika displayed a grave interest in the details of the house and iron at Myrtle Forge; he explained the processes that resulted in the wrought blooms despatched by tons in the lumbering, mule-drawn wagons.  They explored the farm, where she listened approvingly to the changes he proposed making, kitchen gardens to be planted, the hedges of roses and gravelled paths to be laid—­for her.  She suggested an Italian walk, latticed above, with a stone seat, and was indicating a corner that might be transformed into a semblance of an angle of Versailles, when, suddenly, she stopped, and clasped his wrist.

“No!  No!” she exclaimed, with surprising energy.  “We’ll have no France, no court, here, but only America; only you and myself, with no past, no memories, but just the future.”  How that was to be realized neither of them considered; they avoided all practical issues, difficulties.  They never mentioned Felix Winscombe’s name.  However, a long communication came from him for his wife.  She read it thoughtfully, in the drawing room, awaiting dinner.  No one else but Howat was present, and he was standing with his hand on her shoulder.  “Felix hasn’t been well,” she remarked presently.  “For the first time he has spoken to me of his age.  The Maryland affair drags, and that has wearied him.”