house in the Market Square of Wyck-on-the-Hill; but in the end he had
had the same intoxicating experience of his power, all obstructions
going down before Mr. Waddington of Wyck.

And this year, when Toby was finally demobilized, it was only natural
that she should draw on Mr. Waddington's influence again to get him a
permanent peace job. He had got it; and that meant more visits and more
gratitude; till here he was, attached to Mrs. Levitt by the unbreakable
tie of his benefactions. He was even attached to her son Toby, whose
continued existence, to say nothing of his activity in Mr. Bostock's
Bank at Wyck, was a perpetual tribute to his power. Mr. Waddington had
nothing like the same complacence in thinking of his own son Horace; but
then Horace's existence and his activity were not a tribute but a
menace, a standing danger, not only to his power but to his fascination,
his sense of himself as a still young, still brilliant and effective
personality. (Horace inherited his mother's deplorable lack of
seriousness.) And it was in Mrs. Levitt's society that Mr. Waddington
was most conscious of his youth, his brilliance and effect. With an
agreeable sense of anticipation he climbed up the slopes of Sheep Street
and Park Street, and so into the Square.

The house, muffled in ivy, hid discreetly in the far corner, behind the
two tall elms on the Green. Mrs. Trinder, the landlady, had a sidelong
bend of the head and a smile that acknowledged him as Mr. Waddington of
Wyck and Mrs. Levitt's benefactor.

And as he waited in the low, mullion-darkened room he reminded himself
that he had come to refuse her request. If, as he suspected, it was the
Ballingers' cottage that she wanted. To be sure, the Ballingers had
notice to quit in June, but he couldn't very well turn the Ballingers