Fully assenting, Louis wondered whether Marksedge would serve no purpose save the elucidation of this truism, and presently another ensued.

’Mischief is sooner done than repaired.  As I have been allowing you, there has never been ready money at command.’

’I thought there were no more mortgages to be paid off.  The rents of the Fitzjocelyn estate and the houses in the lower town must come to something.’

He was then told how these, with his mother’s fortune, had been set apart to form a fund for his establishment, and for the first time he was shown the object of arrangements against which he had often in heart rebelled.  His first impulse was to exclaim that it was a great pity, and that he could not bear that his father should have denied himself on his account.

‘Do you think these things are sacrifices to me?’ said the Earl.  ’My habits were formed long ago.’

‘Mine have been formed on yours,’ said Louis.  ’I should be encumbered by such an income as you propose unless you would let me lay it out in making work for the men and improving the estate, and that I had rather you undertook, for I should be certain to do something preposterous, and then be sorry.’

‘Mrs. Ponsonby judged rightly.  It was her very advice.’

‘Then!’ cried Louis, as if the deed were done.

’You would not find the income too large in the event of your marriage.’

‘A most unlikely event!’

His father glanced towards him.  If there had been a symptom of unhappiness, relenting was near, but it so chanced that Marksedge was reigning supreme, and he was chiefly concerned to set aside the supposition as an obstacle to his views.  The same notion as James Frost’s occurred to the Earl, that it could not be a tenacious character which could so easily set aside an attachment apparently so fervent, but the resignation was too much in accordance with his desires to render him otherwise than gratified, and he listened with complacency to Louis’s plans.  Nothing was fixed, but there was an understanding that all should have due consideration.

This settled, Louis’s mind recurred to the hint which his father had thrown out, and he wondered whether it meant that the present compliance might be further stretched, but he thought it more likely to be merely a reference to ordinary contingencies.  Things were far too comfortable between him and his father to be disturbed by discussion, and he might ultimately succeed better by submitting, and leaving facts and candour to remove prejudice.

To forget perplexity in the amusement of a mystification, he brought down his essay, concealing it ingeniously within a review flanked by blue-books, and, when Lord Ormersfield was taking out a pair of spectacles with the reluctance of a man not yet accustomed to them, he asked him if he would like to hear an article on the Police question.