The end of the six months found them still undecided as to where they should fix a permanent abode.  In no part of England had either of them relatives or friends whose proximity would be of any value.  Cecily inclined towards London, feeling that there only would her husband find incentives to exertion; but Reuben was more disposed to settle somewhere on the Continent.  He talked of going back to Italy, living in Florence, and—­writing something new about the Renaissance.  Cecily shook her head; Italy she loved, and she had seen nothing of it north of Naples, but it was the land of lotus-eaters.  They would go there again, but not until life had seriously shaped itself.

Whilst they talked and dreamed, decision came to them in the shape of Mrs. Lessingham.  Without warning, she one day presented herself at their lodgings, having come direct from Paris.  Her spirits were delightful; she could not have behaved more graciously had this marriage been the one desire of her life.  The result of her private talk with Cecily was that within a week all three travelled down to London; there they remained for a fortnight, then went on to Paris.  Mrs. Lessingham’s quarters were in Rue de Belle Chasse, and the Elgars found a suitable dwelling in the same street.

Their child was born, and for a few months all questions were postponed to that of its health and Cecily’s.  The infant gave a good deal of trouble, was anything but robust; the mother did not regain her strength speedily.  The first three months of the new year were spent at Bordighera; then came three months of Paris; then the family returned to England (without Mrs. Lessingham), and established themselves in the house in Belsize Park.

The immediate effect of paternity upon Elgar was amusing.  His self-importance visibly increased.  He spoke with more gravity; whatever step he took was seriously considered; if he read a newspaper, it was with an air of sober reflection.

“This is the turning-point in his life,” Cecily said to her aunt.  “He seems to me several years older; don’t you notice it?  I am quite sure that as soon as things are in order again he will begin to work.”

And the prophecy seemed to find fulfilment.  Not many days after their taking possession of the English home, Reuben declared a project that his mind had been forming.  It was not, to be sure, thoroughly fashioned; its limits must necessarily be indeterminate until fixed by long and serious study; but what he had in view was to write a history of the English mind in its relation to Puritanism.

“I have a notion, Ciss, that this is the one thing into which I can throw all my energies.  The one need of my intellectual life is to deal a savage blow at the influences which ruined all my early years.  You can’t look at the matter quite as I do; you don’t know the fierce hatred with which I am moved when I look back.  If I am to do literary work at all, it must be on some subject which deeply concerns me—­me myself, as an individual.  I feel sure that my bent isn’t to fiction; I am not objective enough.  But I enjoy the study of history, and I have a good deal of acuteness.  If I’m not mistaken, I can make a brilliant book, a book that will excite hatred and make my name known.”