more of a fool than Egbert, realized that since we are here we may as
well live. And so he applied himself to his own tiny section of the
social work, and to doing the best for his family, and to leaving the
rest to the ultimate will of heaven. A certain robustness of blood made
him able to go on. But sometimes even from him spurted a sudden gall of
bitterness against the world and its make-up. And yet--he had his own
will-to-succeed, and this carried him through. He refused to ask himself
what the success would amount to. It amounted to the estate down in
Hampshire, and his children lacking for nothing, and himself of some
importance in the world: and _basta!--Basta! Basta!_

Nevertheless do not let us imagine that he was a common pusher. He was
not. He knew as well as Egbert what disillusion meant. Perhaps in his
soul he had the same estimation of success. But he had a certain acrid
courage, and a certain will-to-power. In his own small circle he would
emanate power, the single power of his own blind self. With all his
spoiling of his children, he was still the father of the old English
type. He was too wise to make laws and to domineer in the abstract. But
he had kept, and all honour to him, a certain primitive dominion over the
souls of his children, the old, almost magic prestige of paternity. There
it was, still burning in him, the old smoky torch or paternal godhead.

And in the sacred glare of this torch his children had been brought up.
He had given the girls every liberty, at last. But he had never really
let them go beyond his power. And they, venturing out into the hard white
light of our fatherless world, learned to see with the eyes of the world.
They learned to criticize their father, even, from some effulgence of
worldly white light, to see him as inferior. But this was all very well
in the head. The moment they forgot their tricks of criticism, the old
red glow of his authority came over them again. He was not to be