well in that direction. And he wished them to go well. He had known
Geoffrey since he was a little chap in his first breeches; had watched
him through Winchester and Oxford, had taken as semi-paternal pride in
the young man's distinguished war record, and had helped him with his
election expenses. He himself was intimate with very few of the younger
generation. His companions in the Admiralty work, and certain senior
naval officers with whom that work had made him acquainted:--a certain
intimacy, a certain real friendship had indeed grown up between him and
some of them. But something old and tired in him made the effort of
bridging the gulf between himself and men in their twenties--generally
speaking--too difficult. Or he thought so. The truth was, perhaps, as
Geoffrey had expressed it to Helena, that many of the younger men who had
been brought into close official or business contact with him felt a real
affection for him. Buntingford would have thought it strange that they
should do so, and never for one moment assumed it.

After its languid morning, Beechmark revived with the afternoon. Its
young men guests, whom the Dansworth rioters would probably have classed
as parasites and idlers battening on the toil of the people, had in fact
earned their holiday by a good many months of hard work, whether in the
winding up of the war, or the re-starting of suspended businesses, or the
renewed activities of the bar; and they were taking it whole-heartedly.
Golf, tennis, swimming, and sleep had filled the day, and it was a crowd
in high spirits that gathered round Mrs. Friend for tea on the lawn,
somewhere about five o'clock. Lucy, who had reached that stage of fatigue
the night before when--like Peter Dale, only for different reasons--her
bed became her worst enemy, had scarcely slept a wink, but was
nevertheless presiding gaily over the tea-table. She looked particularly
small and slight in a little dress of thin grey stuff that Helena had
coaxed her to wear in lieu of her perennial black, but there was that