‘After all,’ he told himself, ’it’s a little thing to ask—­one letter a month.  I never heard of such a case.’  It was wonderful indeed how they stood it!  It showed how much they valued Pippin!  What was the matter with him?  What was the nature of his trouble?  One glimpse Scorrier had when even Hemmings, as he phrased it, received “quite a turn.”  It was during a drive back from the most outlying of the company’s trial mines, eight miles through the forest.  The track led through a belt of trees blackened by a forest fire.  Pippin was driving.  The secretary seated beside him wore an expression of faint alarm, such as Pippin’s driving was warranted to evoke from almost any face.  The sky had darkened strangely, but pale streaks of light, coming from one knew not where, filtered through the trees.  No breath was stirring; the wheels and horses’ hoofs made no sound on the deep fern mould.  All around, the burnt tree-trunks, leafless and jagged, rose like withered giants, the passages between them were black, the sky black, and black the silence.  No one spoke, and literally the only sound was Pippin’s breathing.  What was it that was so terrifying?  Scorrier had a feeling of entombment; that nobody could help him; the feeling of being face to face with Nature; a sensation as if all the comfort and security of words and rules had dropped away from him.  And-nothing happened.  They reached home and dined.

During dinner he had again that old remembrance of a little man chopping at a castle with his sword.  It came at a moment when Pippin had raised his hand with the carving-knife grasped in it to answer some remark of Hemmings’ about the future of the company.  The optimism in his uplifted chin, the strenuous energy in his whispering voice, gave Scorrier a more vivid glimpse of Pippin’s nature than he had perhaps ever had before.  This new country, where nothing but himself could help a man—­that was the castle!  No wonder Pippin was impatient of control, no wonder he was out of hand, no wonder he was silent—­chopping away at that!  And suddenly he thought:  ’Yes, and all the time one knows, Nature must beat him in the end!’

That very evening Hemmings delivered himself of his reproof.  He had sat unusually silent; Scorrier, indeed, had thought him a little drunk, so portentous was his gravity; suddenly, however he rose.  It was hard on a man, he said, in his position, with a Board (he spoke as of a family of small children), to be kept so short of information.  He was actually compelled to use his imagination to answer the shareholders’ questions.  This was painful and humiliating; he had never heard of any secretary having to use his imagination!  He went further—­it was insulting!  He had grown grey in the service of the company.  Mr. Scorrier would bear him out when he said he had a position to maintain—­his name in the City was a high one; and, by George! he was going to keep it a high one; he would allow nobody to drag it in the dust—­that ought clearly to be understood.  His directors felt they were being treated like children; however that might be, it was absurd to suppose that he (Hemmings) could be treated like a child...!  The secretary paused; his eyes seemed to bully the room.