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By Root 911 0

a lot about engines of all kinds. But most of the time he just mooched about, accompanied by Murphy, and until asked to stop, shot down with remarkable accuracy crows, pigeons, and squirrels, whose corpses he left lying where they fell. Michael watched him from afar, but felt no urge to see more of him. Half guiltily he began to see Nick a little through the eyes of James and Mark Stafford; and once in conversation he found himself calling him a 'poor fish'. Nick on his side seemed passive, almost comatose at times. Once or twice, when opportunity offered, he seemed to want to talk to Michael, but Michael did not encourage him and nothing came of these half explicit gestures. Michael felt curious about Nick's relations with his sister, but this curiosity remained unsatisfied. They seemed to meet infrequently, and Catherine continued her work, seemingly unobsessed by the proximity of her eccentric brother. As for the lines of force from the power house across the water, in which Catherine had had so much faith, they were apparently impinging without effect upon the thicker hide of her twin.

Michael did not altogether give up hope that Imber might work some miracle. But he could not help seeing, after a while with some sadness, and some relief, that Nick was neither inspired nor dangerous but simply bored; and it was hard to see how he could escape boredom on a scene in which he chose to participate so little. Michael, who was exceedingly busy with other things, did not at present see how he could be further 'drawn in', while, congratulating himself on his good sense, he avoided tête-à-têtes with his former friend. Nick lingered on, looking a little healthier, a little browner, a little thinner. Doubtless he was drinking less, though his seclusion in the Lodge, chosen perhaps with just that in mind, made it difficult to know. Michael guessed that he would hang around, taking Imber as a cheap rest cure, until Catherine had gone into the Abbey. Then he would return to London and carry on as before. It looked as if the strange tale would have, after all, a rather dull and undistinguished ending.

CHAPTER 8

It was Saturday evening, the same day as the Meeting recorded above, and the afternoon heat had lingered on, becoming thicker and hazier and seemingly undiminished. The sky was cloudless now, rising to a peak of intense blue that was almost audible. Everyone trailed about quietly perspiring and complaining of being stifled.

Work was supposed to end, subject to the more urgent seasonal requirements of the garden, at five o'clock on Saturday, and Sunday was supposed to be kept as a day of rest. In fact, work usually encroached on these times; but there was, from Saturday evening onward, a sense of deliberate détente, a somewhat self-conscious effort at diversion, which Michael found tedious. He managed unobtrusively to busy himself in the office, and indeed the time was badly needed to catch up on the paper work of the previous week; but he was forced to some extent to support the fiction of being on holiday. The Straffords were particularly keen on this idea, and Michael suspected that they thought the time should be devoted to getting on with one's hobbies. Michael had no hobbies. He found he was not able to divert himself; even books were unattractive to him now, though he kept steadily to a modest programme of devotional reading. He was restless to be, officially, back at work.

It was also that this leisure period was too full, sometimes, of disturbing thoughts. He worried now about Nick, imagining various plans for his welfare, and tormented occasionally by a desire, which he rejected as a temptation, to go and have a long talk with him alone. No good would come of that for either of them. Michael prided himself on having lost at least certain illusions; and he felt, from this austerity, an increase of spiritual strength. He resolved, however, to speak to Catherine seriously about her brother. He had surely been right to wait, before making more solemn efforts, to see if Nick would be able to find for himself a place