“I’m sorry, sir,” he said.  “Perhaps I was extravagant, but if you don’t want to be an outsider, you must do like the rest, and I understood you expected me to make friends among our own set.  We can’t be shabby.”

He struck the right note, for Osborn was not clever and perhaps his strongest characteristic was his exaggerated family pride.

“You had enough and I paid your debts not long since,” he said.  “In fact, you have had more than your share, with the consequence that Grace gets less than hers.”  He knitted his brows as he indicated the house-master’s curt letter.  “Then, you have given a stranger an opportunity for writing to me like this.”

Gerald, knowing his father’s humor, saw he was getting on dangerous ground.

“Brown’s a dry old prig, sir.  Nothing sporting about him; he’s hardly a gentleman.”

Osborn was seldom logical and now his annoyance was rather concentrated on the master who had written to him with jarring frankness than on the extravagant lad.

“His letter implies it,” he agreed and then pulled himself up.  Gerald was clever and no doubt meant to divert his thoughts.  “After all, this doesn’t matter,” he went on.  “I’ll pay these bills, but if you get into debt at Woolwich, you had better not come home.  I have enough trouble about money, and your allowance is going to be a strain.  There’s another thing:  Carter, who hasn’t had your advantages, got in as a prize cadet.”

Gerald smiled.  “He hasn’t got his commission.  Old Harry means well, but he’s not our sort, and these plodding, cramming fellows seldom make good officers.”

“An officer must pay his mess bills, whether he’s good or bad,” Osborn rejoined.  “If you go into the Horse Artillery, there won’t be much money left when you have settled yours, so it might be prudent to begin some self-denial now.  Anyhow, if you get into debt again, you know the consequences.”

He raised his hand in dismissal and walked to the window when the lad went out.  He had not taken the line he meant to take, but Gerald often, so to speak, eluded him.  The lad had a way of hinting that they understood one another and Osborn vaguely suspected that he worked upon his prejudices; but he was a sportsman.  He had pluck and knew what the Osborn traditions demanded.  In fact, Gerald might go far, if he went straight.

Then Osborn thought he needed a drink, and after ringing a bell he sat down by the window with the tray and glass a servant brought.  It was significant that he had given no order; the servants knew what the bell meant.  When he had drained the glass he vacantly looked out.  Boggy pasture and stony cornfields ran back from the tarn.  Here and there a white farmstead, surrounded by stunted trees, stood at the hill foot; farther back a waterfall seamed the rocks and yellow grass with threads of foam; and then a lofty moor, red with heather, shut off the view.