despotism, and each time he had won them back with ease which sowed the
first seeds of cynicism in his mind. It happened to be another of the
elder Stonehouse's theories--which he had been known to expound
eloquently to his creditors--that children should be taught the use of
money, and at such times as the Stonehouse family prospered Robert's
pocket bulged with sums that staggered the very imagination of his
followers. He appeared among them like a prince--lavish, reckless,
distributing chocolates of superior lineage with a haughty magnificence
that brought the disaffected cringing to his feet.

But even with them he was not really happy. At heart he was still a
strange little boy, different from the rest. There was a shadow over
him. He knew that apart from him they were nice, ordinary children,
and that he was a man full of sorrows and mystery and bitter
experience. He despised them. They could be bought and bribed and
bullied. But if he could have been ordinary as they were, with quiet,
ordinary homes and people who loved one another and paid their bills,
he would have cried with joy.

When he did anything particularly bold and reckless he looked out of
the corners of his eyes at Frances Wilmot to see if at last he had
impressed her. For she eluded him. She never defied his authority,
and very rarely took part in his escapades. But she was always there,
sometimes in the midst, sometimes just on the fringe, like a bird,
intent on business of its own, coming and going in the heart of human
affairs. Sometimes she seemed hardly to be aware of him, and sometimes
she treated him as though there were an unspoken intimacy between them
which made him glow with pride for days afterwards. She would put her
arm about him and walk with him in the long happy silence of
comradeship. And once, quite unexpectedly, she had seemed gravely