But he was always exactly the same; ‘steady as old Time,’ as Mrs Gibson called him, with her usual originality; ’a rock of strength, under whose very shadow there is rest,’ as Mrs. Hamley had once spoken of him.  So the cause of Mrs. Gibson’s altered manner lay not in him.  Yet now he was sure of a welcome, let him come at any hour he would.  He was playfully reproved for having taken Mrs. Gibson’s words too literally, and for never coming before lunch.  But he said he considered her reasons for such words to be valid, and should respect them.  And this was done out of his simplicity, and from no tinge of malice.  Then in their family conversations at home, Mrs Gibson was constantly making projects for throwing Roger and Cynthia together, with so evident a betrayal of her wish to bring about an engagement, that Molly chafed at the net spread so evidently, and at Roger’s blindness in coming so willingly to be entrapped.  She forgot his previous willingness, his former evidences of manly fondness for the beautiful Cynthia; she only saw plots of which he was the victim, and Cynthia the conscious if passive bait.  She felt as if she could not have acted as Cynthia did; no, not even to gain Roger’s love.  Cynthia heard and saw as much of the domestic background as she did, and yet she submitted to the role assigned to her!  To be sure, this role would have been played by her unconsciously; the things prescribed were what she would naturally have done; but because they were prescribed—­by implication only, it is true—­Molly would have resisted; have gone out, for instance, when she was expected to stay at home; or have lingered in the garden when a long country walk was planned.  At last—­for she could not help loving Cynthia, come what would—­she determined to believe that Cynthia was entirely unaware of all; but it was with an effort that she brought herself to believe it.

It may be all very pleasant ’to sport with Amaryllis in the shade, or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair,’ but young men at the outset of their independent life have many other cares in this prosaic England to occupy their time and their thoughts.  Roger was Fellow of Trinity, to be sure; and from the outside it certainly appeared as if his position, as long as he chose to keep unmarried, was a very easy one.  His was not a nature, however, to sink down into inglorious ease, even had his fellowship income been at his disposal.  He looked forward to an active life; in what direction he had not yet determined.  He knew what were his talents and his tastes; and did not wish the former to lie buried, nor the latter, which he regarded as gifts, fitting him for some peculiar work, to be disregarded or thwarted.  He rather liked awaiting an object, secure in his own energy to force his way to it, when he once saw it clearly.  He reserved enough of money for his own personal needs, which were small, and for the ready furtherance of any project he might see fit to undertake; the rest