Horace’s pipe was going out; he held it against his knee and regarded it with unconscious eyes.

‘I dare say it won’t be,’ said Mr. Lord, ’when you have found a suitable wife.’

’Oh, but you misunderstand me.  I mean that I have decided to marry a particular person.’

‘And who may that be?’

‘The younger Miss.  French—­Fanny.’

His voice quivered over the name; at the end he gave a gasp and a gulp.  Of a sudden his lips and tongue were very dry, and he felt a disagreeable chill running down his back.  For the listener’s face had altered noticeably; it was dark, stern, and something worse.  But Mr. Lord could still speak with self-control.

‘You have asked her to marry you?’

‘Yes, I have; and she has consented.’

Horace felt his courage returning, like the so-called ‘second wind’ of a runner.  It seemed to him that he had gone through the worst.  The disclosure was made, and had resulted in no outbreak of fury; now he could begin to plead his cause.  Imagination, excited by nervous stress, brought before him a clear picture of the beloved Fanny, with fluffy hair upon her forehead and a laugh on her never-closed lips.  He spoke without effort.

’I thought that there would be no harm in asking you to help us.  We should be quite content to start on a couple of hundred a year—­ quite.  That is only about fifty pounds more than we have.’

Calf-love inspires many an audacity.  To Horace there seemed nothing outrageous in this suggestion.  He had talked it over with Fanny French several times, and they had agreed that his father could not in decency offer them less than a hundred a year.  He began to shake out the ashes from his pipe, with a vague intention of relighting it.

‘You really imagine,’ said his father, ’that I should give you money to enable you to marry that idiot?’

Evidently he put a severe restraint upon himself.  The veins of his temples were congested; his nostrils grew wide; and he spoke rather hoarsely.  Horace straightened his back, and, though in great fear, strung himself for conflict.

‘I don’t see—­what right—­to insult the young lady.’

His father took him up sternly.

’Young lady?  What do you mean by “young lady”?  After all your education, haven’t you learnt to distinguish a lady from a dressed-up kitchen wench? I had none of your advantages.  There was —­there would have been some excuse for me, if I had made such a fool of myself.  What were you doing all those years at school, if it wasn’t learning the difference between real and sham, getting to understand things better than poor folks’ children?  You disappointed me, and a good deal more than I ever told you.  I had hoped you would come from school better able to make a place in the world than your father was.  I made up my mind long ago that you should never go into my business; you were to be something a good deal better.  But after all you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do what I wanted.  Never mind—­I said to myself—­never mind; at all events, he has learnt to think in a better way than if I had sent him to common schools, and after all that’s the main thing.  But here you come to me and talk of marrying a low-bred, low-minded creature, who wouldn’t be good enough for the meanest clerk!’