“A universal genius!” said Lilian, with a forced laugh.

“Well, there’s no doubt he has come very near success in a good many directions.  Never quite succeeded; there’s the misfortune.  I suppose he lacks perseverance.  But he doesn’t care; takes everything with a laugh and a joke.”

He reached for the evening newspaper, and glanced absently over the columns.  For a minute or two there was silence.

“What have you told him?” Lilian asked at length, in an undertone.

“Why, simply that I have had reasons for keeping my marriage secret.”

He spoke in a blunt, authoritative way, but with his usual kindly smile.

“I thought it better,” he added, “after that chance meeting the other day.  He’s a fellow one can trust, I assure you.  Thoroughly good-hearted.  As you know, I don’t readily make friends, and I’m the last man to give my confidence to any one who doesn’t deserve it.  But Glazzard and I have always understood each other pretty well, and—­at all events, he knows me well enough to be satisfied with as much as I choose to tell him.”

Quarrier had the air of a man who, without any vulgar patronage, and in a spirit of abundant good-nature, classifies his acquaintance in various degrees of subordination to himself.  He was too healthy, too vigorous of frame and frank in manner to appear conceited, but it was evident that his experience of life had encouraged a favourable estimate of his own standing and resources.  The ring of his voice was sound; no affectation or insincerity marred its notes.  For all that, he seemed just now not entirely comfortable; his pretence of looking over the paper in the intervals of talk was meant to cover a certain awkwardness in discussing the subject he had broached.

“You don’t object to his coming, Lily?”

“No; whatever you think best, dear.”

“I’m quite sure you’ll find him pleasant company.  But we must get him a dinner, somehow.  I’ll go to some hotel to-morrow morning and put the thing in their hands; they’ll send a cook, or do something or other.  If the girl had been here we should have managed well enough; Glazzard is no snob.—­I want to smoke; come into my study, will you?  No fire?  Get up some wood, there’s a good girl, we’ll soon set it going.  I’d fetch it myself, but I shouldn’t know where to look for it.”

A flame was soon roaring up the chimney in the little back room, and Quarrier’s pipe filled the air with fragrant mist.

“How is it,” he exclaimed, settling in the arm-chair, “that there are so many beggars in this region?  Two or three times this last week I’ve been assailed along the street.  I’ll put a stop to that; I told a great hulking fellow to-night that if he spoke to me again (it was the second time) I would take the trouble of marching him to the nearest police station.”

“Poor creatures!” sighed Lilian.

“Pooh!  Loafing blackguards, with scarcely an exception!  Well, I was going to tell you:  Glazzard comes from my own town, Polterham.  We were at the Grammar School there together; but he read AEschylus and Tacitus whilst I was grubbing over Eutropius and the Greek declensions.”