Thus summing up the laws of Nature, the Squire resumed his knife and
fork.

But neither Mrs. Bellew nor George followed his example; the one sat
with her eyes fixed on her plate and a faint smile playing on her lips,
the other sat without a smile, and his eyes, in which there was such a
deep resentful longing, looked from his father to Mrs. Bellew, and from
Mrs. Bellew to his mother. And as though down that vista of faces and
fruits and flowers a secret current had been set flowing, Mrs. Pendyce
nodded gently to her son.




CHAPTER II

THE COVERT SHOOT

At the head of the breakfast-table sat Mr. Pendyce, eating methodically.
He was somewhat silent, as became a man who has just read family
prayers; but about that silence, and the pile of half-opened letters on
his right, was a hint of autocracy.

"Be informal--do what you like, dress as you like, sit where you like,
eat what you like, drink tea or coffee, but----" Each glance of his
eyes, each sentence of his sparing, semi-genial talk, seemed to repeat
that "but".

At the foot of the breakfast-table sat Mrs. Pendyce behind a silver urn