Fraternity | Page 9

daughter of Mr. Justice Carfax, of the well-known county
family--the Carfaxes of Spring Deans, Hants--was recorded in the
sixties. The baptisms of Martin, Cecilia, and Bianca, son and daughters
of Sylvanus and Anne Stone, were to be discovered registered in
Kensington in the three consecutive years following, as though some
single-minded person had been connected with their births. After this
the baptisms of no more offspring were to be found anywhere, as if that
single mind had encountered opposition. But in the eighties there was
noted in the register of the same church the burial of "Anne, nee Carfax,
wife of Sylvanus Stone." In that "nee Carfax" there was, to those who
knew, something more than met the eye. It summed up the mother of
Cecilia and Bianca, and, in more subtle fashion, Cecilia and Bianca, too.

It summed up that fugitive, barricading look in their bright eyes, which,
though spoken of in the family as "the Carfax eyes," were in reality far
from coming from old Mr. Justice Carfax. They had been his wife's in
turn, and had much annoyed a man of his decided character. He himself
had always known his mind, and had let others know it, too; reminding
his wife that she was an impracticable woman, who knew not her own
mind; and devoting his lawful gains to securing the future of his
progeny. It would have disturbed him if he had lived to see his
grand-daughters and their times. Like so many able men of his
generation, far-seeing enough in practical affairs, he had never
considered the possibility that the descendants of those who, like
himself, had laid up treasure for their children's children might acquire
the quality of taking time, balancing pros and cons, looking ahead, and
not putting one foot down before picking the other up. He had not
foreseen, in deed, that to wobble might become an art, in order that,
before anything was done, people might know the full necessity for
doing some thing, and how impossible it would be to do indeed, foolish
to attempt to do--that which would fully meet the case. He, who had
been a man of action all his life, had not perceived how it would grow
to be matter of common instinct that to act was to commit oneself, and
that, while what one had was not precisely what one wanted, what one
had not (if one had it) would be as bad. He had never been
self-conscious--it was not the custom of his generation--and, having but
little imagination, had never suspected that he was laying up that
quality for his descendants, together with a competence which secured
them a comfortable leisure.
Of all the persons in his grand-daughter's studio that afternoon, that
stray sheep Mr. Purcey would have been, perhaps, the only one whose
judgments he would have considered sound. No one had laid up a
competence for Mr. Purcey, who had been in business from the age of
twenty.
It is uncertain whether the mere fact that he was not in his own fold
kept this visitor lingering in the studio when all other guests were gone;
or whether it was simply the feeling that the longer he stayed in contact
with really artistic people the more distinguished he was becoming.

Probably the latter, for the possession of that Harpignies, a good
specimen, which he had bought by accident, and subsequently by
accident discovered to have a peculiar value, had become a factor in his
life, marking him out from all his friends, who went in more for a neat
type of Royal Academy landscape, together with reproductions of
young ladies in eighteenth-century costumes seated on horseback, or in
Scotch gardens. A junior partner in a banking-house of some
importance, he lived at Wimbledon, whence he passed up and down
daily in his car. To this he owed his acquaintance with the family of
Dallison. For one day, after telling his chauffeur to meet him at the
Albert Gate, he had set out to stroll down Rotten Row, as he often did
on the way home, designing to nod to anybody that he knew. It had
turned out a somewhat barren expedition. No one of any consequence
had met his eye; and it was with a certain almost fretful longing for
distraction that in Kensington Gardens he came on an old man feeding
birds out of a paper bag. The birds having flown away on seeing him,
he approached the feeder to apologize.
"I'm afraid I frightened your birds, sir," he began.
This old man, who was dressed in smoke-grey tweeds which exhaled a
poignant scent of peat, looked at him without answering.
"I'm afraid your birds saw me coming," Mr. Purcey said again.
"In those days," said the aged stranger, "birds were afraid of