Surrey, where he was to lead a studious life and compose a great political work.  The man had, in fact, an organic disorder, which proved fatal to him before he could quite decide whether to write his book on foolscap or on quarto paper.  Mrs. Woolstan devoted herself to her child, until, when Leonard was nine, she entrusted him to a tutor very highly spoken of by friends of hers, a young Oxford man, capable not only of instructing the boy in the most efficient way, but of training whatever force and originality his character might possess.  She paid a hundred and fifty pounds a year for these invaluable services—­in itself not a large stipend, but large in proportion to her income.  And Iris had never grudged the expenditure, for in Dyce Lashmar she found, not merely a tutor for her son, but a director of her own mind and conscience.  Under Dyce’s influence she had read or tried to read—­many instructive books; he had fostered, guided, elevated her native enthusiasm; he had emancipated her soul.  These, at all events, were the terms in which Iris herself was wont to describe the results of their friendship, and she was eminently a sincere woman, ever striving to rise above the weakness, the disingenuousness, of her sex.

“If you knew how it pains me!” she murmured, stealing a glance at Lashmar.  “But of course it won’t make any difference—­between us.”

“Oh, I hope not.  Why should it?” said Dyce, absently.  “Now I’ll tell you something that has happened since I saw you last.”

“Yes—­yes—­your own news!  Oh, I’m afraid it is something bad!”

“Perhaps not.  I rather think I’m at a crisis in my life—­probably the crisis.  I shouldn’t wonder if these things prove to have happened just at the right time.  My news is this.  Things are going rather badly down at the vicarage.  There’s serious diminution of income, which I knew nothing about.  And the end of it is, that I mustn’t count on any more supplies; they have no more money to spare for me.  You see, I am thoroughly independent.”

He laughed; but Mrs. Woolstan gazed at him in dismay.

“Oh!  Oh!  How very serious!  What a dreadful thing!”

“Pooh!  Not at all.  That’s a very feminine way of talking.”

“I’m afraid it is.  I didn’t mean to use such expressions.  But really—­what are you going to do?”

“That’ll have to be thought about.”

Iris, with fluttering bosom, leaned forward.

“You’ll talk it over with me?  You’ll treat me as a real friend—­ just like a man friend?  You know how often you have promised to.”

“I shall certainly ask your advice.”

“Oh! that’s kind, that’s good of you!  We’ll talk it over very seriously.”