permanent testament that her father had given to the world; and dealing, as
in the main they did, with ultimate problems, their keynote an illumined
democracy that saw in most of the results as yet achieved by his country a
base travesty of the doctrine, the largeness of their grasp was perhaps a
trifle loose. Imogen did not see it. Her appreciation was more of aims than
of achievements; but she felt that her father's writings were the body,
only, of his message; its spirit lived--lived in herself and in all those
with whom he had come in fruitful--contact. It was to hand on the meaning
of that spirit that she felt herself dedicated. Perfect, unflinching truth;
the unfaltering bearing witness to all men of his conception of right;
the seeing of her own personality as but an instrument in the service of
good--these were the chief words of the gospel. Life in its realest sense
meant only this dedication. To serve, to love, to be the truth. Her eyes
on her father's pictured eyes, Imogen smiled into them, promising him and
herself that she would not fail.




VII


It was in the library next morning that Valerie asked Imogen to join her,
and the girl, who had come into the room with her light, soft step, paused
to kiss her mother's forehead before going to the opposite seat.

"Deep in ways and means, mamma dear?" she asked her. "Why, you are quite
a business woman." "Quite," Valerie replied. "I have been going over
things with Mr. Haliwell, you know." She smiled thoughtfully at Imogen,
preoccupied, as the girl could see, by what she had to say.