father’s numerous male friends.  What were they going to do when they arrived in the extremely odd country which had taken it into its head to be different from England?  How many male friends was father taking with him?  Why hadn’t they all been to “see us?” Was Uncle Guy one of them?  Was Mr. Thrush going too?  Why wasn’t Mr. Thrush going?  If he was too old to go was Uncle Guy too old?  Did Mr. Thrush want to go?  Was he disappointed at father’s not being able to take him?  Was it all a holiday for father?  Would mummy have liked to go?  No lies had been told to Robin, but some of the information he had sought had been withheld.  Dion had made skilful use of Mr. Thrush when matters had become difficult, when Robin had nearly driven him into a corner.  The ex-chemist, though seldom seen, loomed large in Robin’s world, on account of his impressive coloring and ancient respectabilities.  Robin regarded him with awful admiration, and looked forward to growing like him in some far distant future.  Dion had frequently ridden off from difficult questions on Mr. Thrush.  Even in the final interview between father and son Mr. Thrush had been much discussed.

The final interview had taken place in the nursery among Aunt Beattie’s bricks, by which Robin was still obsessed.  Dion had sat on the floor and built towers with his boy, and had wondered, as he handled the bricks in the shining of the nursery fire, whether he would come back to help Robin with his building later on.  He was going out to build, for England and for himself, perhaps for Robin and Rosamund, too.  Would he be allowed to see the fruits of his labors?

The towers of bricks had grown high, and with it Dion had built up another tower, unknown to Robin, a tower of hopes for the child.  So much ardor in so tiny a frame!  It was a revelation of the wonder of life.  What a marvel to have helped to create that life and what a responsibility.  And he was going away to destroy life, if possible.  The grotesqueness of war had come upon him then, as he had built up the tower with Robin.  And he had longed for a released world in which his boy might be allowed to walk as a man.  The simplicity of Robin, his complete trustfulness, his eager appreciation of human nature, his constant reaching out after kindness without fear of being denied, seemed to imply a world other than the world which must keep on letting blood in order to get along.  Robin, and all the other Robins, female and male, revealed war in its true light.  Terrible children whose unconscious comment on life bites deep like an acid!  Terrible Robin in that last hour with the bricks!

When the tower had become a marvel such as had been seen in no nursery before, Dion had suggested letting it be.  Another brick and it must surely fall.  The moment was at hand when he must see the last of Robin.  He had had a furtive but strong desire to see the tower he and his son had built still standing slenderly erect when he went out of the nursery.  Just then he had been the man who seeks a good omen.  Robin had agreed with his suggestion after a long moment of rapt contemplation of the tower.