“You spoke of him as a tutor?”

“A tutor!  Oh, I said he was in a measure our tutor when we were young.  I meant in training us—­in training us to good; and he allowed George and Val to read with him, and directed their studies:  all for love, and out of the friendship he and my father bore each other.  Dr. Ashton a paid tutor!” ejaculated Lord Hartledon, laughing at the notion.  “Dr. Ashton an obscure country clergyman!  And even if he were, who is Val, that he should set himself up?”

“He is the Honourable Val Elster.”

“Very honourable!  Val is an unlucky dog of a spendthrift; that’s what Val is.  See how many times he has been set up on his legs!—­and has always come down again.  He had that place in the Government my father got him.  He was attache in Paris; subsequently in Vienna; he has had ever so many chances, and drops through all.  One can’t help loving Val; he is an attractive, sweet-tempered, good-natured fellow; but he was certainly born under an unlucky star.  Elster’s folly!”

“Val will drop through more chances yet,” remarked Lady Maude.  “I pity Miss Ashton, if she means to wait for him.”

“Means to!  She loves him passionately—­devotedly.  She would wait for him all her life, and think it happiness only to see him once in a way.”

“As an astronomer looks at a star through a telescope,” laughed Maude; “and Val is not worth the devotion.”

“Val is not a bad fellow in the main; quite the contrary, Maude.  Of course we all know his besetting sin—­irresolution.  A child might sway him, either for good or ill.  The very best thing that could happen to Val would be his marriage with Anne.  She is sensible and judicious; and I think Val could not fail to keep straight under her influence.  If Dr. Ashton could only be brought to see the matter in this light!”

“Can he not?”

“He thinks—­and I don’t say he has not reason—­that Val should show some proof of stability before his marriage, instead of waiting until after it.  The doctor has not gone to the extent of parting them, or of suspending the engagement; but he is prepared to be strict and exacting as to Mr. Val’s line of conduct; and I fancy the suspicion that it would be so has kept Val away from Calne.”

“What will be done?”

“I hardly know.  Val does not make a confidant of me, and I can’t get to the bottom of how he is situated.  Debts I am sure he has; but whether—­”

“Val always had plenty of those,” interrupted Maude.

“True.  When my father died, three parts of Val’s inheritance went to pay off debts nobody knew he had contracted.  The worst is, he glides into these difficulties unwittingly, led and swayed by others.  We don’t say Elster’s sin, or Elster’s crimes; we say Elster’s folly.  I don’t believe Val ever in his life did a bad thing of deliberate intention.  Designing people get hold of him—­fast fellows who are going headlong down-hill themselves—­and Val, unable to say ‘No,’ is drawn here and drawn there, and tumbles with them into a quagmire, and perhaps has to pay his friends’ costs, as well as his own, before he can get out of it.  Do you believe in luck, Maude?”