And he had told his father that he intended to ask Mabel Grex to be his wife.  He had so committed himself that the offer must now be made.  He did not specially regret that, though he wished that he had been more reticent.  ’What a fool a man is to blurt out everything!’ he said to himself.  A wife would be a good thing for him; and where could he possibly find a better wife than Mabel Grex?  In beauty she was no doubt inferior to Miss Boncassen.  There was something about Miss Boncassen which made it impossible to forget her.  But Miss Boncassen was an American, and on many accounts out of the question.  It did not occur to him that he would fall in love with Miss Boncassen for a few weeks.  No doubt there were objections to marriage.  It clipped a fellow’s wings.  But then, if he were married, he might be sure that Tifto would be laid aside.  It was a great thing to have got his father’s assured consent to a marriage.  It meant complete independence in money matters.

Then his mind ran away to a review of his father’s affairs.  It was a genuine trouble to him that his father should be so unhappy.  Of all the griefs which weighed upon the Duke’s mind, that in reference to his sister was the heaviest.  The money which Gerald owed at Cambridge would be nothing if that sorrow could be conquered.  Nor had Tifto and his own extravagances caused the Duke any incurable wounds.  If Tregear could be got out of the way his father, he thought, might be reconciled to other things.  He felt very tender-hearted about his father; but he had no remorse in regard to his sister as he made up his mind that he would speak very seriously to Tregear.

He had wandered into St James’s Park, and had lighted by this time half-a-dozen cigarettes one after another, as he sat on one of the benches.  He was a handsome youth, all but six feet high, with light hair, with round blue eyes, and with all that aristocratic look, which had belonged so peculiarly to the late Duke but which was less conspicuous in the present head of the family.  He was a young man whom you would hardly pass in a crowd without observing,—­but of whom you would say, after due observation, that he had not as yet put off all his childish ways.  He now sat with his legs stretched out, with his cane in his hands, looking down upon the water.  He was trying to think.  He worked hard at thinking.  But the bench was hard, and, upon the whole, he was not satisfied with his position.  He had just made up his mind that he would look up Tregear, when Tregear himself appeared on the path before him.

‘Tregear!’ exclaimed Silverbridge.

‘Silverbridge!’ exclaimed Tregear.

‘What on earth makes you walk about here on a Sunday morning?’

’What on earth makes you sit there?  That I should walk here, which I often do, does not seem to me odd.  But that I should find you is marvellous.  Do you often come?’

’Never was here in my life before.  I strolled because I had things to think of.’