Another by-product, this, of that little starting episode, the notice given to Tryst!  Strange how in life one little incident, one little piece of living stress, can attract and gather round it the feelings, thoughts, actions of people whose lives run far and wide away therefrom.  But episodes are thus potent only when charged with a significance that comes from the clash of the deepest instincts.

During the six weeks which had elapsed between his return home from Joyfields and the assizes, Felix had much leisure to reflect that if Lady Malloring had not caused Tryst to be warned that he could not marry his deceased wife’s sister and continue to stay on the estate—­the lives of Felix himself, his daughter, mother, brother, brother’s wife, their son and daughter, and in less degree of his other brothers, would have been free of a preoccupation little short of ludicrous in proportion to the face value of the cause.  But he had leisure, too, to reflect that in reality the issue involved in that tiny episode concerned human existence to its depths—­for, what was it but the simple, all-important question of human freedom?  The simple, all-important issue of how far men and women should try to rule the lives of others instead of trying only to rule their own, and how far those others should allow their lives to be so ruled?  This it was which gave that episode its power of attracting and affecting the thoughts, feelings, actions of so many people otherwise remote.  And though Felix was paternal enough to say to himself nearly all the time, ’I can’t let Nedda get further into this mess!’ he was philosopher enough to tell himself, in the unfatherly balance of his hours, that the mess was caused by the fight best of all worth fighting—­of democracy against autocracy, of a man’s right to do as he likes with his life if he harms not others; of ‘the Land’ against the fetterers of ’the Land.’  And he was artist enough to see how from that little starting episode the whole business had sprung—­given, of course, the entrance of the wilful force called love.  But a father, especially when he has been thoroughly alarmed, gives the artist and philosopher in him short shrift.

Nedda came home soon after Sheila went, and to the eyes of Felix she came back too old and thoughtful altogether.  How different a girl from the Nedda who had so wanted ‘to know everything’ that first night of May!  What was she brooding over, what planning, in that dark, round, pretty head?  At what resolve were those clear eyes so swiftly raised to look?  What was going on within, when her breast heaved so, without seeming cause, and the color rushed up in her cheeks at a word, as though she had been so far away that the effort of recall was alone enough to set all her veins throbbing.  And yet Felix could devise no means of attack on her infatuation.  For a man cannot cultivate the habit of never interfering and then suddenly throw it over; least of all when the person to be interfered with is his pet and only daughter.