Stafford found this too painful.  He rose to get a light and sauntered into the billiard-room and tried the table.

Sir Stephen looked after him musingly, and seemed to forget Howard’s presence; then suddenly his face flushed and his eyes shone with a curious mixture of pride and tenderness and the indomitable resolution which had helped him to fight his “wild beast.”  He leant forward and touched Howard’s knee.

“Don’t you understand!” he said, earnestly, and in a low voice which the click of the billiard balls prevented Stafford from hearing.  “It is for him!  For my boy, Mr. Howard!  It’s for him that I have been working, am still working.  For myself—­I am satisfied—­as he said; but not for him.  I want to see him still higher up the ladder than I have climbed.  I have done fairly well—­heaven and earth! if anyone had told me twenty years ago that I should be where and what I am to-day—­well, I’d have sold my chances for a bottle of ale.  You smile.  Mr. Howard, it was anything but beer and skittles for me then.  I want to leave my boy a—­title.  Smile again, Mr. Howard; I don’t mind.”

“I haven’t a smile about me, sir,” said Howard.

“Ah, you understand.  You see my mind.  I don’t know why I’ve told you, excepting that it is because you are Staff’s friend.  But I’ve told you now.  And am I not right?  Isn’t it a laudable ambition?  Can you say that he will not wear it well, however high the title may be?  Where is there such another young fellow?  Proud—­pride is too poor a word for what I feel for him!”

He paused and sank back, but leant forward again.

“Though I’ve kept apart from him, Mr. Howard, I have watched him—­but in no unworthy sense.  No, I haven’t spied upon him.”

“There was no need, sir,” said Howard, very quietly.

“I know it.  Stafford is as straight as a dart, as true as steel.  Oh, I’ve heard of him.  I know there isn’t a more popular man in England—­forgive me if I say I don’t think there’s a handsomer.”

Howard nodded prompt assent.

“I read of him, in society, at Hurlingham.  Everywhere he goes he holds his own.  And I know why.  Do you believe in birth, Mr. Howard?” he asked, abruptly.

“Of course,” replied Howard.

“So do I, though I can’t lay claim to any.  But there’s a good strain in Stafford and it shows itself.  There’s something in his face, a certain look in his eyes, in his voice, and the way he moves; that quiet yet frank manner—­oh, I can’t explain!” he broke off, impatiently.

“I think you have done it very well,” said Howard.  “I don’t like the word—­it is so often misapplied—­but I can’t think of any better:  distinguished is the word that describes Stafford.”

Sir Stephen nodded eagerly.

“You are right.  Some men are made, born to wear the purple.  My boy is one of them—­and he shall!  He shall take his place amongst the noblest and the best in the land.  He shall marry with the highest.  Nature has cast him in a noble mould, and he shall step into his proper place.”