It was arranged by the two who best knew and loved her that her meeting with Rosalie should have no spectators, and that their first hour together should be wholly unbroken in upon.

“You have not seen each other for so long,” Betty said, when, on her arrival, she led her at once to the morning-room where Rosy waited, pale with joy, but when the door was opened, though the two figures were swept into each other’s arms by one wild, tremulous rush of movement, there were no sounds to be heard, only caught breaths, until the door had closed again.

The talks which took place between Mr. Vanderpoel and Lord Mount Dunstan were many and long, and were of absorbing interest to both.  Each presented to the other a new world, and a type of which his previous knowledge had been but incomplete.

“I wonder,” Mr. Vanderpoel said, in the course of one of them, “if my world appeals to you as yours appeals to me.  Naturally, from your standpoint, it scarcely seems probable.  Perhaps the up-building of large financial schemes presupposes a certain degree of imagination.  I am becoming a romantic New York man of business, and I revel in it.  Kedgers, for instance,” with the smile which, somehow, suggested Betty, “Kedgers and the Lilium Giganteum, Mrs. Welden and old Doby threaten to develop into quite necessary factors in the scheme of happiness.  What Betty has felt is even more comprehensible than it seemed at first.”

They walked and rode together about the countryside; when Mount Dunstan itself was swept clean of danger, and only a few convalescents lingered to be taken care of in the huge ballroom, they spent many days in going over the estate.  The desolate beauty of it appealed to and touched Mr. Vanderpoel, as it had appealed to and touched his daughter, and, also, wakened in him much new and curious delight.  But Mount Dunstan, with a touch of his old obstinacy, insisted that he should ignore the beauty, and look closely at less admirable things.

“You must see the worst of this,” he said.  “You must understand that I can put no good face upon things, that I offer nothing, because I have nothing to offer.”

If he had not been swept through and through by a powerful and rapturous passion, he would have detested and abhorred these days of deliberate proud laying bare of the nakedness of the land.  But in the hours he spent with Betty Vanderpoel the passion gave him knowledge of the things which, being elemental, do not concern themselves with pride and obstinacy, and do not remember them.  Too much had ended, and too much begun, to leave space or thought for poor things.  In their eyes, when they were together, and even when they were apart, dwelt a glow which was deeply moving to those who, looking on, were sufficiently profound of thought to understand.

Watching the two walking slowly side by side down the leafless avenue on a crystal winter day, Mr. Vanderpoel conversed with the vicar, whom he greatly liked.