“As long as you’re sporting I’ve got no quarrel with you,” declared Waldron.  “I’m not very clever myself, but I can see that if they won’t let you do what you want to do, it’s not your fault.  If they refuse to let you play the game—­but, of course, you must grant the game looks different from their point of view.  No doubt they think you’re not playing the game.  A woman’s naturally not such a sporting animal as a man, and what we think is straight, she often doesn’t appreciate, and what she thinks is straight we often know is crooked.  Women, in fact, are more like the other nations which, with all their excellent qualities, don’t know what ‘sporting’ means.”

“I mean to do right,” answered Raymond, “and probably I’m strong enough to make them see it and wear them down, presently.  I’m really only concerned about Sabina and her child.  The rest, and what they think and what they don’t think, matter nothing.  She may listen to reason when she’s well again.”

Two days later Raymond received a box from London and showed Estelle an amazing bunch of Muscat grapes, destined for Sabina.

“She always liked grapes,” he said, “and these are as good as any in the world at this moment.”

On his way to the Mill he left the grapes at ‘The Magnolias,’ and spoke a moment with Mr. Churchouse.

“She is making an excellent recovery,” said Ernest, “and I am hoping that, presently, the maternal instinct will assert itself.  I do everything to encourage it.  But, of course, when conditions are abnormal, results must be abnormal.  She’s a very fine and brave woman and worthy of supreme admiration.  And worthy of far better and more manly treatment than she has received from you.  But you know that very well, Raymond.  Owing to the complexities created by civilisation clashing with nature, we get much needless pain in the world.  But a reasonable being should have recognised the situation, as you did not, and realise that we have no right to obey nature if we know at the same time we are flouting civilisation.  You think you’re doing right by considering Sabina’s future.  You are a gross materialist, Raymond, and the end of that is always dust and ashes and defeated hopes.  I won’t bring religion into it, because that wouldn’t carry weight with you; but I bring justice into it and your debt to the social order, that has made you what you are and to which you owe everything.  You have done a grave and wicked wrong to the new-born atom of life in this house, and though it is now too late wholly to right that wrong, much might yet be done.  I blame you, but I hope for you—­I still hope for you.”

He took the grapes, and Raymond, somewhat staggered by this challenge, found himself not ready to answer it.

“We’ll have a talk some evening, Uncle Ernest,” he answered.  “I don’t expect your generation to see this thing from my point of view.  It’s reasonable you shouldn’t, because you can’t change; and it’s also reasonable that I shouldn’t see it from your point of view.  If I’m material, I’m built so; and that won’t prevent me from doing my duty.”