“My lord,” said he, walking up to his father with his hand out, “I am very glad to come back to Saulsby.”  He had written to his sister to say that he would be at Saulsby on that day, but had named no hour.  He now appeared between ten and eleven in the morning, and his father had as yet made no preparation for him,—­had arranged no appropriate words.  He had walked in at the front door, and had asked for the Earl.  The Earl was in his own morning-room,—­a gloomy room, full of dark books and darker furniture, and thither Lord Chiltern had at once gone.  The two women still were sitting together over the fire in the breakfast-room, and knew nothing of his arrival.

“Oswald!” said his father, “I hardly expected you so early.”

“I have come early.  I came across country, and slept at Birmingham.  I suppose Violet is here.”

“Yes, she is here,—­and Laura.  They will be very glad to see you.  So am I.”  And the father took the son’s hand for the second time.

“Thank you, sir,” said Lord Chiltern, looking his father full in the face.

“I have been very much pleased by this engagement,” continued the Earl.

“What do you think I must be, then?” said the son, laughing.  “I have been at it, you know, off and on, ever so many years; and have sometimes thought I was quite a fool not to get it out of my head.  But I couldn’t get it out of my head.  And now she talks as though it were she who had been in love with me all the time!”

“Perhaps she was,” said the father.

“I don’t believe it in the least.  She may be a little so now.”

“I hope you mean that she always shall be so.”

“I shan’t be the worst husband in the world, I hope; and I am quite sure I shan’t be the best.  I will go and see her now.  I suppose I shall find her somewhere in the house.  I thought it best to see you first.”

“Stop half a moment, Oswald,” said the Earl.  And then Lord Brentford did make something of a shambling speech, in which he expressed a hope that they two might for the future live together on friendly terms, forgetting the past.  He ought to have been prepared for the occasion, and the speech was poor and shambling.  But I think that it was more useful than it might have been, had it been uttered roundly and with that paternal and almost majestic effect which he would have achieved had he been thoroughly prepared.  But the roundness and the majesty would have gone against the grain with his son, and there would have been a danger of some outbreak.  As it was, Lord Chiltern smiled, and muttered some word about things being “all right,” and then made his way out of the room.  “That’s a great deal better than I had hoped,” he said to himself; “and it has all come from my going in without being announced.”  But there was still a fear upon him that his father even yet might prepare a speech, and speak it, to the great peril of their mutual comfort.