Estelle only found him unchanged.  Before her he was always jovial and happy.  He liked to hear her talk and listen to her budding theories of life and pretty dreams of what the world ought to be, if people would only take a little more trouble for other people.  But Estelle was painfully direct.  She thought for herself and had not yet learned to hide her ideas, modify their shapes, or muffle their outlines when presenting them to another person.  Mr. Churchouse and her father were responsible for this.  They encouraged her directness and, while knowing that she outraged opinion sometimes, could not bring themselves to warn her, or stain the frankness of her views, with the caution that good manners require thought should not go nude.

Now the peril of Estelle’s principles appeared when lunch was finished and the servants had withdrawn.

“I didn’t speak before Lucy and Agnes,” she said, “because they might talk about it afterwards.”

“Bless me!  How cunning she’s getting!” laughed Raymond.  But he did not laugh long.  Estelle handed him his coffee and lit a match for his cigar; while Arthur, guessing what was coming, resigned himself helplessly to the storm.

“Sabina is fearfully unhappy, Ray.  She loves you so much, and I hope you will change your mind and marry her after all, because if you do, she’ll love her baby, too, and look forward to it very much.  But if you don’t, she’ll hate her baby.  And it would be a dreadful thing for the poor little baby to come into the world hated.”

To Waldron’s intense relief Raymond showed no annoyance whatever.  He was gentle and smiled at Estelle.

“So it would, Chicky—­it would be a dreadful thing for a baby to come into the world hated.  But don’t you worry.  Nobody’s going to hate it.”

“I’ll tell Sabina that.  Sabina’s sure to have a nice baby, because she’s so nice herself.”

“Sure to.  And I shall be a very good friend to the baby without marrying Sabina.”

“If she knows that, it ought to comfort her,” declared Estelle.  “And I shall be a great friend to it, too.”

Her father bade the child be off on an errand presently and expressed his regrets to the guest when she was gone.

“Awfully sorry, old chap, but she’s so unearthly and simple; and though I’ve often told myself to preach to her, I never can quite do it.”

“Never do.  She’ll learn to hide her thoughts soon enough.  Nothing she can say would annoy me.  For that matter she’s only saying what a great many other people are thinking and haven’t the pluck to say.  The truth is this, Arthur; when I was a poor man I was a weak man, and I should have married Sabina and we should both have had a hell of a life, no doubt.  Now the death of Daniel has made me a strong man, and I’m not doing wrong as the result; I’m doing right.  I can afford to do right and not mind the consequences.  And the truth about life is that half the people who do wrong, only do it because they can’t afford to do right.”