Beneath an appearance and a vocabulary more orthodox than ever, the Colonel’s allegiance to Authority and the laws of Form was really shaken; he simply could not get out of his head the sight of those two young people sitting side by side, nor the tone of Olive’s voice, when she had repeated his regrettable words about happiness at home.

If only the thing had not been so human!  If only she had been someone else’s niece, it would clearly have been her duty to remain unhappy.  As it was, the more he thought, the less he knew what to think.  A man who had never had any balance to speak of at his bank, and from the nomadic condition of his life had no exaggerated feeling for a settled social status—­deeming Society in fact rather a bore—­he did not unduly exaggerate the worldly dangers of this affair; neither did he honestly believe that she would burn in everlasting torment if she did not succeed in remaining true to ‘that great black chap,’ as he secretly called Cramier.  His feeling was simply that it was an awful pity; a sort of unhappy conviction that it was not like the women of his family to fall upon such ways; that his dead brother would turn in his grave; in two words that it was ‘not done.’  Yet he was by no means of those who, giving latitude to women in general, fall with whips on those of their own family who take it.  On the contrary, believing that ’Woman in general’ should be stainless to the world’s eye, he was inclined to make allowance for any individual woman that he knew and loved.  A suspicion he had always entertained, that Cramier was not by breeding ’quite the clean potato’ may insensibly have influenced him just a little.  He had heard indeed that he was not even entitled to the name of Cramier, but had been adopted by a childless man, who had brought him up and left him a lot of money.  There was something in this that went against the grain of the childless Colonel.  He had never adopted, nor been adopted by anyone himself.  There was a certain lack about a man who had been adopted, of reasonable guarantee—­he was like a non-vintage wine, or a horse without a pedigree; you could not quite rely on what he might do, having no tradition in his blood.  His appearance, too, and manner somehow lent colour to this distrust.  A touch of the tar-brush somewhere, and a stubborn, silent, pushing fellow.  Why on earth had Olive ever married him!  But then women were such kittle cattle, poor things! and old Lindsay, with his vestments and his views on obedience, must have been a Tartar as a father, poor old chap!  Besides, Cramier, no doubt, was what most women would call good-looking; more taking to the eye than such a quiet fellow as young Lennan, whose features were rather anyhow, though pleasant enough, and with a nice smile—­the sort of young man one could not help liking, and who certainly would never hurt a fly!  And suddenly there came the thought:  Why should he not go to young Lennan and put it to him straight?  That he was in love with Olive?  Not quite—­but the way to do it would come to him.  He brooded long over this idea, and spoke of it to Mrs. Ercott, while shaving, the next morning.  Her answer:  “My dear John, bosh!” removed his last doubt.