‘No one; I beg your pardon,’ meekly said Louis, taking up his stick to go; but both knew it was only a feint, and James, whose vehemence was exhausting itself, resumed, in an injured tone, ’What disturbs you? what is this scruple of yours!—­you, who sometimes fancy you would have been a curate yourself!’

’I have just inclination enough to be able to perceive that you have none.’

‘And is every one to follow his bent?’

’This is not a step to be taken against the grain, even for the best earthly motives.  Jem!  I only beg you to ask advice.  For the very reason that you are irreproachable, you will never have it offered.’

‘The present time, for instance?’ said James, laughing as best he might.

’That is nothing.  I have no faith in my own judgment, but, thinking as I do of the profession and of you, I cannot help believing that my distaste for seeing you in it must be an instinct.’

’Give me your true opinion and its grounds candidly, knowing that I would not ask another man living.’

‘Nor me, if I did not thrust it on you.’

‘Now for it!  Let us hear your objection.’

’Simply this.  I do not see that anything impels you to take Holy Orders immediately, except your wish to be independent, and irrevocably fixed before your uncle can come home.  This seems to me to have a savour of something inconsistent with what you profess.  It might be fine anywhere else, but will it not bear being brought into the light of the sanctuary?  No, I cannot like it.  I have no doubt many go up for ordination far less fit than you, but—­Jem, I wish you would not.  If you would but wait a year!’

’No, Fitzjocelyn, my mind is made up.  I own that I might have preferred another course, and Heaven knows it is not that I think myself worthy of this; but I have been brought up to this, and I will not waver.  It is marked out for me as plainly as your earldom for you, and I will do my duty in it as my appointed calling.  There lies my course of honest independence:  you call it pride—­see what those are who are devoid of it:  there lie my means of educating my sister, providing for my grandmother.  I can see no scruple that should deter me.’

Fitzjocelyn having said his say, it was his turn and his nature to be talked down.

‘In short,’ concluded James, walking about the room, ’there is no alternative.  Waiting for a College living is bad enough, but nothing else can make happiness even possible.’

‘One would think you meant one sort of happiness,’ said Louis, with a calm considering tone, and look of inquiry which James could not brook.

‘What else?’ he cried.  ’Fool and madman that I am to dwell on the hopeless—­’

‘Why should it be hopeless?—­’ began Louis.

’Hush! you are the last person with whom I could discuss this subject,’ he said, trying to be fierce, but with more sorrow than anger.  ’I must bear my burthen alone.  Believe me, I struggled hard.  If you and I be destined to clash, one comfort is, that even I could never quarrel with you.’