“I have one friend at Windygates,” said Arnold.  “He came here this morning, like you.  Geoffrey Delamayn.”

As he made the reply, Miss Silvester appeared at the entrance to the summer-house.  A shadow of annoyance passed over her face when she saw that the place was occupied.  She vanished, unnoticed, and glided back to the game.

Sir Patrick looked at the son of his old friend, with every appearance of being disappointed in the young man for the first time.

“Your choice of a friend rather surprises me,” he said.

Arnold artlessly accepted the words as an appeal to him for information.

“I beg your pardon, Sir—­there’s nothing surprising in it,” he returned.  “We were school-fellows at Eton, in the old times.  And I have met Geoffrey since, when he was yachting, and when I was with my ship.  Geoffrey saved my life, Sir Patrick,” he added, his voice rising, and his eyes brightening with honest admiration of his friend.  “But for him, I should have been drowned in a boat-accident.  Isn’t that a good reason for his being a friend of mine?”

“It depends entirely on the value you set on your life,” said Sir Patrick.

“The value I set on my life?” repeated Arnold.  “I set a high value on it, of course!”

“In that case, Mr. Delamayn has laid you under an obligation.”

“Which I can never repay!”

“Which you will repay one of these days, with interest—­if I know any thing of human nature,” answered Sir Patrick.

He said the words with the emphasis of strong conviction.  They were barely spoken when Mr. Delamayn appeared (exactly as Miss Silvester had appeared) at the entrance to the summer-house.  He, too, vanished, unnoticed—­like Miss Silvester again.  But there the parallel stopped.  The Honorable Geoffrey’s expression, on discovering the place to be occupied, was, unmistakably an expression of relief.

Arnold drew the right inference, this time, from Sir Patrick’s language and Sir Patrick’s tones.  He eagerly took up the defense of his friend.

“You said that rather bitterly, Sir,” he remarked.  “What has Geoffrey done to offend you?”

“He presumes to exist—­that’s what he has done,” retorted Sir Patrick.  “Don’t stare!  I am speaking generally.  Your friend is the model young Briton of the present time.  I don’t like the model young Briton.  I don’t see the sense of crowing over him as a superb national production, because he is big and strong, and drinks beer with impunity, and takes a cold shower bath all the year round.  There is far too much glorification in England, just now, of the mere physical qualities which an Englishman shares with the savage and the brute.  And the ill results are beginning to show themselves already!  We are readier than we ever were to practice all that is rough in our national customs, and to excuse all that is violent and brutish in our national acts.  Read the popular books—­attend the popular amusements; and you will find at the bottom of them all a lessening regard for the gentler graces of civilized life, and a growing admiration for the virtues of the aboriginal Britons!”