"Indeed I do not. I am doing my duty to Godleigh—that's my life's work henceforth, and all anybody can expect."
"But that is just what you are not doing. You're not everybody, remember; and even if you think you are, you won't live for ever. You'll have to go and sleep in real earnest under the skulls with bats' wings, poor Christo, some day, and Myles and I shall be outside under the grass."
"Who is morbid now?"
"Don't evade the point. I want you to think of the thing you love best in the world—Godleigh."
"Well?"
"Godleigh has got to go on. It won't stop because you do—Godleigh's immortal. When a tree falls there, Nature will plant another. Then what is to become of the dearest, loveliest place in Devon after you are gathered to your fathers?"
"I'm going to leave it to you and Myles and your heirs for ever."
"Don't be ridiculous, Christo; you're going to leave it to a rightful heir, and it's high time you began to devote a little thought to him. Don't wait until you're a stupid, old, middle-aged thing of half a century. Then you'll probably die in the gloomy conviction that you leave your children mere helpless infants."
"So much the better for them, for they'd escape the example of their father. But, as a matter of fact, I'm not going to marry. Godleigh's my mother and sister and brother and wife and family."
"Then you'll leave your family unprovided for, and that's a very wicked thing to do. We're growing old and sensible nowadays, and there'll be plain speaking between us as long as we live; so I tell you now that I've thought of this very seriously indeed, and so has Myles. He quite agees with me; and my opinion is that you ought to marry; the sooner the better."