reckless action. The unrest in her was the same unrest that was driving
men everywhere--and women, too--into industrial disturbance and moral
revolt. The old is done with; and the Tree of Life needs to be well
shaken before the new fruit will drop.

Wild thoughts like these ran through her mind. Then she scoffed at
herself for such large notions, about so small a thing. And suddenly
something checked her--the physical recollection, as it were, left
tingling in her hand, of the grasp by which Buntingford had upheld her,
as she was leaving the boat. With it went a vision of his face, his dark,
furrowed face, in the moonlight.

"The saddest man I know." Why and wherefore? Long after she was in bed,
she lay awake, absorbed in a dreamy yet intense gathering together of all
that she could recollect of Cousin Philip, from her childhood up, through
her school years, and down to her mother's death. Till now he had been
part of the more or less pleasant furniture of life. She seemed to be on
the way to realize him as a man--perhaps a force. It was unsuspected--and
rather interesting.




CHAPTER VII


The drought continued; and under the hot sun the lilacs were already
pyramids of purple, the oaks were nearly in full leaf, and the hawthorns
in the park and along the hedges would soon replace with another white
splendour the fading blossom of the wild cherries.