“I’m delighted to hear it!” exclaimed his mother.  “It’s just what I had supposed.  What could be more natural.  Do you think, by the bye, that I ought to go and see Lady Ogram?  It might seem to her a right and natural thing.  And, from what you tell me of her, I feel sure we should have a good deal in common.”

“I’ve thought of that too,” Dyce answered, averting his look.  “But wait a little.  Just now Lady Ogram isn’t at all well; she sees hardly anybody.”

“Of course I shall be guided by your advice.  A little later, then.  And, Dyce, you haven’t told me anything about Miss Bride.  Is she still with Lady Ogram?”

“Oh yes.  Still acting as secretary.”

“Of course you don’t see much of her?”

“Why, to tell you the truth, we have to see each other a good deal, owing to her duties,”

“Ah, yes, I understand.  She writes to dictation, and that kind of thing.  Strange that Lady Ogram should have engaged such a very unpleasant young woman.  I’ve seldom known anyone I disliked so much.”

“Really?  She’s of the new school, you know; the result of the emancipation movement.”  Dyce smiled, as if indulgently.  “Lady Ogram thinks a great deal of her, and, I fancy, means to leave her money.”

“Gracious!  You don’t say so!”

Mrs. Lashmar put the subject disdainfully aside, and Dyce was glad to speak of something else.

Throughout the day, the vicar was too busy to hold conversation with his son.  But after dinner they sat alone together in the study, Mrs. Lashmar being called forth by some parochial duty.  As he puffed at his newly-lighted pipe, Dyce reflected on all that had happened since he last sat here, some three months ago, and thought of what might have been his lot had not fortune dealt so kindly with him.  Glancing at his father’s face, he noted in it the signs of wearing anxiety; it seemed to him that the vicar looked much older than in the spring, and he was impressed by the pathos of age, which has no hopes to nourish, which can ask no more of life than a quiet ending.  He could not imagine himself grey-headed, disillusioned; the effort to do so gave him a thrill of horror.  Thereupon he felt reproach of conscience.  For all the care and kindness he had received from his father, since the days when he used to come into this very room to show how well he could read a page of some child’s story, what return had he made?  None whatever in words, and little enough in conduct.  All at once, he felt a desire to prove that he was not the insensible egoist his father perhaps thought him.

“I’m afraid you’re a good deal worried, father,” he began, looking at the paper-covered writing-table.

“I’m putting my affairs in order, Dyce,” the vicar replied, running fingers through his beard.  “I’ve been foolish enough to let them get very tangled; let me advise you never to do the same.  But it’ll all be straight before long.  Don’t trouble about me; let me hear of your own projects.  I heartily wish it were in my power to help you.”