“What about my treading on you, Billy?” he said.

“Why?”

“I’m big and you’re little.”

On Billy’s square face came a puzzled defiance.  If he had not been early taught his station he would evidently have found some poignant retort.  An intoxicated humblebee broke the silence by buzzing into Biddy’s fluffed-out, corn-gold hair.  Tod took it off with his hand.

“Lovely chap, isn’t he?”

The children, who had recoiled, drew close again, while the drunken bee crawled feebly in the cage of Tod’s large hand.

“Bees sting,” said Biddy; “I fell on a bee and it stang me!”

“You stang it first,” said Tod.  “This chap wouldn’t sting—­not for worlds.  Stroke it!”

Biddy put out her little, pale finger but stayed it a couple of inches from the bee.

“Go on,” said Tod.

Opening her mouth a little, Biddy went on and touched the bee.

“It’s soft,” she said.  “Why don’t it buzz?”

“I want to stroke it, too,” said Susie.  And Billy stamped a little on Tod’s foot.

“No,” said Tod; “only Biddy.”

There was perfect silence till the dog, rising, approached its nose, black with a splash of pinky whiteness on the end of the bridge, as if to love the bee.

“No,” said Tod.  The dog looked at him, and his yellow-brown eyes were dark with anxiety.

“It’ll sting the dog’s nose,” said Biddy, and Susie and Billy came yet closer.

It was at this moment, when the heads of the dog, the bee, Tod, Biddy, Susie, and Billy might have been contained within a noose three feet in diameter, that Felix dismounted from Stanley’s car and, coming from the cottage, caught sight of that little idyll under the dappled sunlight, green, and blossom.  It was something from the core of life, out of the heartbeat of things—­like a rare picture or song, the revelation of the childlike wonder and delight, to which all other things are but the supernumerary casings—­a little pool of simplicity into which fever and yearning sank and were for a moment drowned.  And quite possibly he would have gone away without disturbing them if the dog had not growled and wagged his tail.

But when the children had been sent down into the field he experienced the usual difficulty in commencing a talk with Tod.  How far was his big brother within reach of mere unphilosophic statements; how far was he going to attend to facts?

“We came back yesterday,” he began; “Nedda and I. You know all about Derek and Nedda, I suppose?”

Tod nodded.

“What do you think of it?”

“He’s a good chap.”

“Yes,” murmured Felix, “but a firebrand.  This business at Malloring’s—­what’s it going to lead to, Tod?  We must look out, old man.  Couldn’t you send Derek and Sheila abroad for a bit?”

“Wouldn’t go.”

“But, after all, they’re dependent on you.”