In the autumn he might return and have a further try.
Finances were getting muddled, too, and he realised how small his
capital actually was when the needs of others made claims upon it.
Neighbours were as plentiful as insects.
He had made all manner of schemes for his cousin's family as well, yet
seemed to have accomplished little. Their muddled life defied
disentanglement, their difficulties were inextricable. With one son at
a costly tutor, another girl in a Geneva school, the younger children
just outgrowing the local education, the family's mode of living so
scattered, meals in one place, rooms in several others,--it was all
too unmethodical and dispersed to be covered by their small uncertain
income. Concentration was badly needed. The endless talks and
confabulations, which have not been reported here because their
confusion was interminable and unreportable, landed every one in a
mass of complicated jumbles. The solution lay beyond his power, as
equally beyond the powers of the obfuscated parents. He would return
to England, settle his own affairs, concoct some practical scheme with
the aid of Minks, and return later to discuss its working out. The
time had come for him to leave.
And, oddly enough, what made him see it were things the children had
said that very evening when he kissed them all good-night.
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