Abel came round the house.

'You can come and see the bees, if you've a mind,' he said forgivingly.
In his angers and his joys he was like a child. He was, in fact, what
he looked--a barbaric child, prematurely aged. He was aged and had
lines on his face because he enjoyed life so much, for joy bites as
deep as sickness or grief or any other physical strain. Hazel would age
soon, for she lived in an intenser world than most people, as if she
saw everything through magnifying glass and coloured glass.

Edward went to the bees as he would have gone to the dogs--sadly. He
disliked the bees even more than he disliked Abel, who in his expansive
mood was much less attractive than in his natural sulkiness. Abel did
not know how near he came once or twice to frustrating an end that he
thought very desirable. A less steadfast man than Edward, with a less
altruistic object in view, would have been frightened away from Hazel
by Abel's crudeness.

'What about the bitch?' he asked Edward when they had seen the bees.
'Will you take her, or shall I drown her?'

Rage flamed in Hazel's face--rage all the more destructive because
it was caused by pity. Her father's calm taking for granted that
Foxy's fate (and her own) depended on his whim and Edward's, the
picture of Foxy tied up in a bag to be drowned--Foxy, who had all
her love--infuriated her.

Edward was troubled at the look in her eyes. He had not yet had much
opportunity for seeing those wild red lights that burn in the eyes of