"I suppose you wouldn't enjoy a walk in the moonlight?" Guy suggested, after the third hand.
"I have my health to think about. Term begins in a fortnight, you know," said Mr. Hazlewood.
Guy had pulled back the curtains and was watching the full moon. This, though ten days short of the actual anniversary, was the lunary festival of the night when he first saw Pauline. Might it be accepted as a propitious omen? Who could say? They talked of dull subjects until it was time to go to bed.
Guy had sent a note to Mrs. Grey, suggesting that he should bring his father to tea next day; and so about four o'clock they set out to the Rectory, the lover in great trepidation of spirit. His father was seeming much more than ever parched and inhuman, and Guy foresaw that his effect upon Pauline would be disastrous. Nor did he feel that the strain upon his own nerves was going to be the best thing for the situation. On the way to the Rectory they met young Brydone, and Guy very nearly invited him to accompany them, in a desperate impulse to evoke a crowd in which he could lose this disturbing consciousness of his father's presence. However, he managed to avoid such a subversion of his attitude; and in a few minutes they were in the hall of the Rectory, where Mrs. Grey, as nervously agitated as she could be, was welcoming them. Luckily Margaret had arrived on the scene before Pauline, and Guy managed to place his father next to her, while he took up the task of trying to compose Mrs. Grey. At last Pauline came in, and Guy seemed to be only aware of a tremendous increase in the noise of the conversation. He realized that it was due to himself's talking nonsense at the top of his voice and that Pauline was vainly trying to get on with his father. Monica had gone to look for the Rector, and Mrs. Grey was displaying the kind of treasures she would produce at a mothers' meeting—treasures to which his father paid but the most scant attention. The whole room seemed to revolve round his father, who for Guy had become the only person in focus, as he stood there parched and inhuman, and perhaps himself a little shy of what he was evidently supposing to be a very mad family. Guy, so miserable was he feeling at his father's coldness of manner towards the Greys, wished passionately that his mother were alive, because he knew how much she would have appreciated them. Monica had now come back with information that the Rector was undiscoverable, so Mrs. Grey volunteered to show Mr. Hazlewood the garden.
"She'll tell you all the flowers wrong," Pauline warned him.
Mr. Hazlewood bowed.
"I'm afraid I know nothing about flowers."
"Guy has learned a lot from Father," said Pauline. "Haven't you, Guy?"
She was making the bravest effort, but it was hopeless, utterly hopeless, Guy thought.
How the promenade round these gardens that were haunted with his and her delights was banishing them one by one! How endless it was, and how complete was the failure to incorporate his father in a life which his advent had so detestably disturbed! Guy acknowledged that the meeting between him and Pauline had served no purpose, and as he looked forward to the final battle between their wills this evening, he set his teeth with rage to defeat his father, at the moment caring not at all if he never saw him again.