‘You never thought of going to one of the Colonies?’ Egremont asked of Gilbert.

‘Yes, years ago,’ was the reply, in the tone of a man who sees the trouble of life behind him.  ’I think at one time my mother rather despised me because I couldn’t make up my mind to go and seek my fortune.’

‘I never despised you, my dear,’ said the old lady, ’but that was when some friends of ours were sending wonderful news from Australia, sir, and I believe I did half try to persuade Gilbert to go.  His health was very bad, and I thought it might have done him good in all ways.’

‘By-the-by,’ remarked Gilbert, ‘Ackroyd talks of going to Canada.’

‘Ackroyd?’ said Egremont.  ‘I’m not surprised to hear that.’

Thyrza had looked at Gilbert anxiously.

‘Who told you that?’ she asked.

‘He told me himself, Thyrza, last night.’

She saw that Egremont was gazing at her; her eyes fell, and she became silent.

Egremont, in the course of the talk, wondered at his position in this little room.  He knew that it was one of very few houses in Lambeth in which he could have been at his ease; perhaps there was not another.  It seemed to him that he had thrown off a great deal that was artificial in behaviour and in habits of speech, that he had reverted to that self which came to him from his parents, and he felt better for the change.  The air of simplicity in the room and its occupants was healthful; of natural refinement there was abundance, only affectation was missing.  Would it have been a hardship if his father had failed to amass money, and he had grown up in such a home as this?  He knew well enough that by going, say, next door he could pass into a domestic sphere of a very different kind, to the midst of a life compact of mean slavery, of ignorance, of grossness.  This was enormously the exception.  But his own home would have been not unlike this.  Poverty could not have taken away his birthright of brains, and perhaps some such piece of luck might have fallen to him as had now to Gilbert Grail.  Perhaps, too—­why not, indeed!—­he would have known Thyrza Trent.  Certainly he would have seen her by chance here or there in Lambeth, and he—­the young workman he might have been—­assuredly would not have let her pass and forget her.  Why, in that case, perchance he might have—­

He had lost himself for a moment.  Thyrza was standing before him with a cup of tea:  he noticed that the cup shook a little in the saucer.

‘Will you have some tea, sir?’ she said.

Mrs. Grail had been perturbed somewhat on the question of refreshments.  Gilbert decided that to offer a cup of tea would be the best thing; Egremont, he knew, dined late, and would not want anything to eat.

‘Thank you, Miss Trent.’

She brought him sugar and milk.  This was quite her own idea.  ’Some people don’t take sugar, some don’t take milk; so you ought to let them help themselves to such things.’  He took both.  She noticed his hand, how shapely it was, how beautiful the finger-nails were.  And then he looked at her with a smile of thanks, not more than of thanks.  Could anyone convey thanks more graciously?