Free Devil's Tor by David Lindsay

the type in the generation to which you and I belong, Hugh, I can't imagine. Clearly you don't, while poor Alan and Janet were just as good Drapiers as you." She referred to his brother and sister, both of whom had died years before, the boy Alan having been killed in France during the war.
    Hugh twisted his moustache.
    "I'm not so sure that it mayn't be I, in spite of the colouring. I seem to have obeyed the voice of the wild very much in the manner of those others, and from where else should I have got the obsession? My worthy old governor interested himself in nothing but the leaving a respectable fortune behind him, in genuine Piet fashion. Nor have I ever heard of other geographical adventurers in his stock. So it must be through my mother."
    Involuntarily Helga glanced at the clock. It was midnight, and though there was still no need to hurry, she preferred now to let an unnecessary topic die a natural death, so that Hugh might come all the more quickly to his intended business.
    "It's half our lifetime nearly since we met, Hugh," she remarked pensively after a pause, her hands being clasped over crossed knees. "It's a most sobering thought. What things we have both seen, done, and known in the meantime! Uncle must appear sadly changed to you. You haven't seen him since you were a lad?"
    "Not for twenty years, to put a rough date to it. Of course he's changed, but then he's getting on."
    "I want you to be as considerate to him as you can. I know he's generally grumpy, and only seems to wake up to say something caustic, but you must remember the infirmities of his age; and he has really been awfully sweet to me. He quite stepped into the breach when poor Dick died."
    "I haven't so far intentionally been discourteous to him, Helga. I trust superfluous discourtesy isn't my nature. On the other hand, it's pretty obvious by now that my society affords him no excessive satisfaction; and as I, for my part, assuredly stand in no need of any strained agreeableness from him, we must probably for the short remaining period of my stay carry on as at present. Perhaps I should entertain a greater private respect for him if he hadn't gone into moneymaking. It rather blunts the edge of his philosophy for me."
    "But money is so necessary. And he was thoroughly upset by the poor reception of intellectual works that had cost him years and years of thought. That estate agency business, too, it wasn't sought, but was practically thrust under his nose; and there has never been any question of surrendering his culture, which has always continued to exist side-by-side. I wish you had my faculty, my dear—to place yourself more in the skins of other people."
    "You're a finely-tempered soul all round, Helga. Only don't expect persons without your natural advantages to be the same."
    He got up, stretched his arms, with the affectation of a half-yawn, and looked down at her.
    "You have guessed there is a particular matter I want to talk to you about?"
    "What matter, Hugh?"
    But the whole of his week-long timidities and caution had suddenly flown with these first ventured words of his, and now he seemed to experience a wonderful coolness and clearness of mental definition, which would enable him exactly to state his request without exciting his cousin's surprise, or extending the ground alone to be made known to her. And first he saw that he must bring up the affair of his estate.
    "It is what I came down to Whitestone for. But up to to-day I've been meaning to speak to Uncle Magnus about it, and then, during a whole week, either he's been in the wrong mood or else I have. So I have decided to have it out with you instead. Ingrid warned me only this evening against worrying him. I'm glad, for with you of course I can talk very much more at ease, and you will have a quicker apprehension of the case; besides which, since you are to be my executrix—but that's a preliminary thing. …"
    Helga was encountering him with a tranquillising upward