“I think I shall go south again,” he said. “I was defrauded of my stay in Capri owing to my father’s death. What about you? Had you not better stay quietly at home? Get your father and mother to come down.”
“Just as you please,” said she.
“Let us settle it like that, then. And look at me a minute, Violet.”
She raised her eyes to his.
“Ah, that’s right,” he said. “You’ve had a lesson to-day, darling. It has tired you, and I will leave you to sleep in one moment. We can’t have you tired; you must take great care of yourself; eat well, sleep well, be out a great deal. About that lesson. Take it to heart, Vi. Never again try to cross my path: it’s much too dangerous. And you’ve no delusions left about letters and registers, have you? Answer me, dear.”
“No,” said she.
“That’s good. Now I’ll leave you.”
The March night was warm and moonlit, and Colin stood by the open window letting the breeze stream in against his skin, and looked out over terrace and lake and woodland. All that he had so passionately desired since first he toddled about this stately home of his race was his, and nothing now could upset his rights. And how wonderful the process of arriving at it had been: every step of that way was memorable; fraud, intrigue, trickery, matchless cruelty, had paved the road, and to-day the road was finished.
He put out his light, and curled himself up in bed.... Violet’s first-born must surely be a son, who should learn early and well from lips that knew what they were saying the sober truth of that which in the legend wore the habiliment of mediæval superstition. He should learn how poor Uncle Raymond had allowed himself to love—yes, there was a time when he had loved mother, and—was not that tiresome for him—mother happened to prefer father. Well, poor Uncle Raymond had loved, and that, perhaps, was his undoing, for he had fallen into the lake, under the ice, and the icy water had smothered him, and the fishes had nibbled him.... Colin chuckled to himself at the thought of recounting that.
For a moment, as he looked out on to the night, he had experienced a dulness and dimness of spirit as of a cloud passing over the bright circle of the moon at the thought that he had accomplished all that had so thrillingly occupied him. But at the thought of his fatherhood, the brightness shone forth again. How fascinating it would be to till and to sow in that soft soil, to rear the seedlings that he would water and tend so carefully, to watch them putting forth the buds of poisonous flowers that swelled and prospered till they burst the sheaths of childhood and opened wide-petalled to night and day.