And they had gone hand in hand.

Here⁠—where the Waverley novels and Byron’s works and Gibbon’s Roman Empire and Humboldt’s Cosmos , and the bronzes on the mantelpiece, and that masterpiece of the oily school, Dutch Fishing-Boats at Sunset , were fixed as fate, and for all sign of change old Jolyon might have been sitting there still, with legs crossed, in the arm chair, and domed forehead and deep eyes grave above the Times ⁠—here they came, those two grandchildren. And Jolly said:

“I saw you and that fellow in the Park.”

The sight of blood rushing into her cheeks gave him some satisfaction; she ought to be ashamed!