The visit to the Clifton oculist resulted in a great success.  The oculist after two or three days’ preparation in a nursing home performed the operation and advised David then to leave his father for a few days (promising if any unfavourable symptoms supervened he would telegraph) so that he might pass the time in sleep as much as possible, and with no mental stimulation.  During this interval David transferred himself and his bicycle to Swansea, and thence visited the Gower caves where he ran up against Rossiter once more and spent delightful hours being inducted into palaeontology by Rossiter and his companions.  Then back to—­by contrast—­boresome Clifton (except for its Zoological Gardens).  After another week his father was well enough to be escorted home.  In another fortnight he might be able to use his eyes, and soon after that would be able to read and write—­in moderation.

But David could not wait to see his intervention crowned with complete success.  He must keep faith with Honoria who would be wanting a long holiday in Switzerland; and their joint business must not suffer by his absence from London.  There were, indeed, times when the peace and comfort and beauty of Pontystrad got hold of him and he asked himself:  “Why not settle down here for the rest of his life, put aside other ambitions, attempt no more than this initial fraud, leave the hateful world wherein women had only three chances to men’s seven.”  Then there would arise once more fierce ambition, the resolve to avenge Vivien Warren for her handicaps, the desire to keep tryst with Honoria and to enjoy more of Rossiter’s society.  Besides, he ran a constant risk of discovery under the affectionate but puzzled inspection of the old nurse.  In her mind, residence amongst the “Wild Boars,” service in an army, travel and adventure generally during an absence of five years, as well as emergence from adolescence into manhood, accounted for much change in physical appearance, but not sufficiently for the extraordinary change in morale:  the contrast between the vicious, untidy, selfish, insolent boy that had gone off to London with ill-concealed glee in 1896 and this grave-mannered, polite, considerate, pleasant-voiced young man who had already managed to find good employment in London before he revealed himself anew to his delighted father.

These doubts David read in Nannie’s mind.  But he would not give them time and chance to become more precise and formulated.  Gradually she would become used to the seeming miracle.  In the meantime he would return to London, and if his father’s recovery was complete he would not revisit “home” till Christmas.  As soon as he was able to write, his father would forward him the copy of his birth-certificate, and he would likewise answer in the sense agreed upon any letters of reference or enquiry:  would state the apprenticeship to architecture with Praed A.R.A., and then the impulse to go out to South Africa, the