Mr. Fentolin sat back in his chair.  His long fingers played nervously together, he looked at her gravely.

“My dear child,” he exclaimed, in a tone of pained surprise, “your attitude distresses me!”

“I cannot help it.  I have told you what I think about Gerald and the life he is compelled to live here.  I don’t mind so much for myself, but for him I think it is abominable.”

“The same as ever,” Mr. Fentolin sighed.  “I fear that this little change has done you no good, dear niece.”

“Change!” she echoed.  “It was only a change of prisons.”

Mr. Fentolin shook his head slowly—­a distressful gesture.  Yet all the time he had somehow the air of a man secretly gratified.

“You are beginning to depress me,” he announced.  “I think that you can go away.  No, stop for just one moment.  Stand there in the light.  Dear me, how unfortunate!  Who would have thought that so beautiful a mother could have so plain a daughter!”

She stood quite still before him, her hands crossed in front of her, something of the look of the nun from whom the power of suffering has gone in her still, cold face and steadfast eyes.

“Not a touch of colour,” he continued meditatively, “a figure straight as my walking-stick.  What a pity!  And all the taste, nowadays, they tell me, is in the other direction.  The lank damsels have gone completely out.  We buried them with Oscar Wilde.  Run along, my dear child.  You do not amuse me.  You can take Gerald with you, if you will.  I have nothing to say to Gerald just now.  He is in my good books.  Is there anything I can do for you, Gerald?  Your allowance, for instance—­a trifling increase or an advance?  I am in a generous humour.”

“Then grant me what I begged for the other day,” the boy answered quickly.  “Let me go to Sandhurst.  I could enter my name next week for the examinations, and I could pass to-morrow.”

Mr. Fentolin tapped the table thoughtfully with his forefinger.

“A little ungrateful, my dear boy,” he declared, “a little ungrateful that, I think.  Your confidence in yourself pleases me, though.  You think you could pass your examinations?”

“I did a set of papers last week,” the boy replied.  “On the given percentages I came out twelfth or better.  Mr. Brown assured me that I could go in for them at any moment.  He promised to write you about it before he left.”

Mr. Fentolin nodded gently.

“Now I come to think of it, I did have a letter from Mr. Brown,” he remarked.  “Rather an impertinence for a tutor, I thought it.  He devoted three pages towards impressing upon me the necessity of your adopting some sort of a career.”

“He wrote because he thought it was his duty,” the boy said doggedly.

“So you want to be a soldier,” Mr. Fentolin continued musingly.  “Well, well, why not?  Our picture galleries are full of them.  There has been a Fentolin in every great battle for the last five hundred years.  Sailors, too—­plenty of them—­and just a few diplomatists.  Brave fellows!  Not one, I fancy,” he added, “like me—­not one condemned to pass their days in a perambulator.  You are a fine fellow, Gerald—­a regular Fentolin.  Getting on for six feet, aren’t you?”