’Now, as to my business, Mr. Starkey.  I’m a fruiterer and greengrocer.  I might have said fruiterer alone; it sounds more respectable, but the honest truth is, I do sell vegetables as well, and I want you to know that, Mr. Starkey.  Does it make you feel ashamed of me?’

’My dear sir!  What business could be more honourable?  I heartily wish I had one as good and as lucrative.’

‘Well, that’s your kindness, sir,’ said Wigmore, with a pleased smile.  ’The fact is, I have done pretty well, though I’m not by any means a rich man:  comfortable, that’s all.  I gave my girls a good schooling, and what with that and their good looks, they’ve both made what may be called better marriages than might have been expected.  For down in our country, you know, sir, a shopkeeper is one thing, and a gentleman’s another.  Now my girls have married gentlemen.’

Again he paused, and with emphasis.  Again Topham murmured, this time congratulation.

’One of them is wife to a young solicitor; the other to a young gentleman farmer.  And they’ve both gone to live in another part of the country.  I dare say you understand that, Mr. Starkey?’

The speaker’s eyes had fallen; at the same time a twitching of the brows and hardening of the mouth changed the expression of his face, marking it with an unexpected sadness, all but pain.

‘Do you mean, Mr. Wigmore,’ asked Topham, ’that your daughters desire to live at a distance from you?’

’Well, I’m sorry to say that’s what I do mean, Mr. Starkey.  My son-in-law the solicitor had intended practising in the town where he was born; instead of that he went to another a long way off.  My son-in-law the gentleman farmer was to have taken a farm close by us; he altered his mind, and went into another county.  You see, sir!  It’s quite natural:  I find no fault.  There’s never been an unkind word between any of us.  But—­’

He was growing more and more embarrassed.  Evidently the man had something he wished to say, something to which he had been leading up by this disclosure of his domestic affairs; but he could not utter his thoughts.  Topham tried the commonplaces naturally suggested by the situation; they were received with gratitude, but still Mr. Wigmore hung his head and talked vaguely, with hesitations, pauses.

’I’ve always been what one may call serious-minded, Mr. Starkey.  As a boy I liked reading, and I’ve always had a book at hand for my leisure time—­the kind of book that does one good.  Just now I’m reading The Christian Year.  And since my daughters married—­well, as I tell you, Mr. Starkey, I’ve done pretty well in business—­there’s really no reason why I should keep on in my shop, if I chose to—­to do otherwise.’

‘I quite understand,’ interrupted Topham, in whom there began to stir a thought which made his brain warm.  ’You would like to retire from business.  And you would like to—­well, to pursue your studies more seriously.’