A silence followed.  Of what was she thinking, this pretty creature whose life was spoiled; who had done with love, and yet was made for love?  Some day when he was gone, perhaps, she would find another mate—­not so disorderly as that young fellow who had got himself run over.  Ah! but her husband?

“Does Soames never trouble you?” he asked.

She shook her head.  Her face had closed up suddenly.  For all her softness there was something irreconcilable about her.  And a glimpse of light on the inexorable nature of sex antipathies strayed into a brain which, belonging to early Victorian civilisation—­so much older than this of his old age—­had never thought about such primitive things.

“That’s a comfort,” he said.  “You can see the Grand Stand to-day.  Shall we take a turn round?”

Through the flower and fruit garden, against whose high outer walls peach trees and nectarines were trained to the sun, through the stables, the vinery, the mushroom house, the asparagus beds, the rosery, the summer-house, he conducted her—­even into the kitchen garden to see the tiny green peas which Holly loved to scoop out of their pods with her finger, and lick up from the palm of her little brown hand.  Many delightful things he showed her, while Holly and the dog Balthasar danced ahead, or came to them at intervals for attention.  It was one of the happiest afternoons he had ever spent, but it tired him and he was glad to sit down in the music room and let her give him tea.  A special little friend of Holly’s had come in—­a fair child with short hair like a boy’s.  And the two sported in the distance, under the stairs, on the stairs, and up in the gallery.  Old Jolyon begged for Chopin.  She played studies, mazurkas, waltzes, till the two children, creeping near, stood at the foot of the piano their dark and golden heads bent forward, listening.  Old Jolyon watched.

“Let’s see you dance, you two!”

Shyly, with a false start, they began.  Bobbing and circling, earnest, not very adroit, they went past and past his chair to the strains of that waltz.  He watched them and the face of her who was playing turned smiling towards those little dancers thinking: 

‘Sweetest picture I’ve seen for ages.’

A voice said: 

“Hollee!  Mais enfin—­qu’est-ce que tu fais la—­danser, le dimanche!  Viens, donc!”

But the children came close to old Jolyon, knowing that he would save them, and gazed into a face which was decidedly ‘caught out.’

“Better the day, better the deed, Mam’zelle.  It’s all my doing.  Trot along, chicks, and have your tea.”

And, when they were gone, followed by the dog Balthasar, who took every meal, he looked at Irene with a twinkle and said: 

“Well, there we are!  Aren’t they sweet?  Have you any little ones among your pupils?”

“Yes, three—­two of them darlings.”

“Pretty?”