warm patch of carpet near the window, stretching his slim shapely body,
instinctively responsive to the sun's caress. No less instinctive was
his profound conviction that nothing possibly could go wrong on a day
like this.

In the first place it meant lessons under their favourite tree. In the
second, it was history and poetry day; and Roy's delight in both made
them hardly seem lessons at all. He thought it very clever of his
mother, having them together. The depth of her wisdom he did not yet
discern. She allowed them within reason, to choose their own poems: and
Roy, exploring her bookcase, had lighted on Shelley's 'Cloud'--the
musical flow of words, the more entrancing because only half understood.
He had straightway learnt the first three verses for a surprise. He
crooned them now, his head flung back a little, his gaze intent on a
gossamer film that floated just above the pine tops--'still as a
brooding dove.'...

Standing there, in full sunlight--the modelling of his young limbs
veiled, yet not hidden, by his silk night-suit; the carriage of head and
shoulders betraying innate pride of race--he looked, on every count, no
unworthy heir to the House of Sinclair and its simple honourable
traditions: one that might conceivably live to challenge family
prejudices and qualms. The thick dark hair, ruffled from sleep, was his
mother's; and hers the semi-opaque ivory tint of his skin. The clean-cut
forehead and nose, the blue-grey eyes, with the lurking smile in them,
were Nevil Sinclair's own. In him, at least, it would seem that love was
justified of her children.

But of family features, as of family qualms, he was, as yet, radiantly
unaware. Snatching his towel, he scampered barefoot down the passage to