Max roused himself for my benefit, and Mr. Tudor seemed in excellent spirits, and we joked Uncle Max a great deal about his fortune, and after dinner we made a pilgrimage through the house, to see what new furniture was needed.

Max accompanied us, looking very bored, and entered a mild protest to most of our remarks.  He certainly agreed to a new carpet for the study and a more comfortable chair, but he turned a perfectly deaf ear when Mr. Tudor proposed that the drawing-room should be refurnished.

‘It is such a pretty room, Mr. Cunliffe,’ he remonstrated; ’and it will be ready by the time you want to get married.  Mother Drabble’s arrangement of chairs and tables is simply hideous.  I was quite ashamed when Mrs. Maberley and her daughter called the other day.’

‘Nonsense, Lawrence!’ returned Max, rather sharply.  ’What do two bachelors want with a drawing-room at all?  You and Ursula may talk as much as you like, but I do not mean to throw away good money on such nonsense.  We will have a new book-case and writing-table, and fit up the little gray room as your study—­and, well, perhaps I may buy a new carpet, but nothing more.’  And we were obliged to be content with this.

Max brought out a couple of wicker chairs on the terrace presently, and proposed that we should have our coffee out of doors.  Mr. Tudor grumbled a little, because he had a letter to write; but I was not sorry when he left me alone with Max.  I really liked Mr. Tudor, but we were neither of us in the mood for his good-natured chatter.

‘I think old Lawrence is very much improved,’ observed Max, as we watched his retreating figure.  ’His sermons have more ballast, and he is altogether grown.  I begin to have hopes of him now.’

‘He is older, of course,’ I remarked oracularly, wondering what Max would say if he knew the truth.  ’Well, Max, did you go up to Gladwyn last night?’

‘Yes,’ he returned, with a quick sigh, ’and Hamilton made me stay to dinner.  I have found out about Captain Hamilton.  He cannot get leave just yet, and they do not expect him until the end of November.’

’I am sorry to hear that.  Do you not wish that you had taken my advice now, and gone down to Bournemouth?’ But a most emphatic ‘No’ on Max’s part was my answer to this.

‘I am very thankful I did nothing of the kind,’ he returned, a little irritably.  ‘You meant well, Ursula, but it would have been a mistake.’

‘Hamilton told me about his cousin,’ he went on; ’but his sister was in the room.  She coloured very much and looked embarrassed directly Claude’s name was mentioned.’

‘That was because Miss Darrell was there.’  But I should have been wiser and, held my tongue.

‘You are wrong again,’ he returned calmly.  ’Miss Darrell was dining at the Maberleys’, and never came in until I was going.’

‘How very strange!’ was my comment to this.