her hand.  Frank’s self-possession was far less steadily disciplined:  it only lasted as long as he remained passive.  When he rose to go; when he felt the warm, clinging pressure of Magdalen’s fingers round his hand, and the lock of her hair which she slipped into it at the same moment, he became awkward and confused.  He might have betrayed Magdalen and betrayed himself, but for Mr. Vanstone, who innocently covered his retreat by following him out, and patting him on the shoulder all the way.  “God bless you, Frank!” cried the friendly voice that never had a harsh note in it for anybody.  “Your fortune’s waiting for you.  Go in, my boy—­go in and win.”

“Yes,” said Frank.  “Thank you.  It will be rather difficult to go in and win, at first.  Of course, as you have always told me, a man’s business is to conquer his difficulties, and not to talk about them.  At the same time, I wish I didn’t feel quite so loose as I do in my figures.  It’s discouraging to feel loose in one’s figures.—­Oh, yes; I’ll write and tell you how I get on.  I’m very much obliged by your kindness, and very sorry I couldn’t succeed with the engineering.  I think I should have liked engineering better than trade.  It can’t be helped now, can it?  Thank you, again.  Good-by.”

So he drifted away into the misty commercial future—­as aimless, as helpless, as gentleman-like as ever.

CHAPTER IX.

THREE months passed.  During that time Frank remained in London; pursuing his new duties, and writing occasionally to report himself to Mr. Vanstone, as he had promised.

His letters were not enthusiastic on the subject of mercantile occupations.  He described himself as being still painfully loose in his figures.  He was also more firmly persuaded than ever—­now when it was unfortunately too late—­that he preferred engineering to trade.  In spite of this conviction; in spite of headaches caused by sitting on a high stool and stooping over ledgers in unwholesome air; in spite of want of society, and hasty breakfasts, and bad dinners at chop-houses, his attendance at the office was regular, and his diligence at the desk unremitting.  The head of the department in which he was working might be referred to if any corroboration of this statement was desired.  Such was the general tenor of the letters; and Frank’s correspondent and Frank’s father differed over them as widely as usual.  Mr. Vanstone accepted them as proofs of the steady development of industrious principles in the writer.  Mr. Clare took his own characteristically opposite view.  “These London men,” said the philosopher, “are not to be tri fled with by louts.  They ha ve got Frank by the scruff of the neck—­he can’t wriggle himself free—­and he makes a merit of yielding to sheer necessity.”

The three months’ interval of Frank’s probation in London passed less cheerfully than usual in the household at Combe-Raven.