’It impressed me, that letter ready stamped for Wanley Manor.  I thought of it again after the meeting in Paris.’

’I understand you.  Of course I could explain the necessity.  It would be useless.’

’Quite.  But experience is not, or should not be, useless, especially when commented on by one who has very much of it behind him.’

Hubert stood up.  His mind was in a feverishly active state, seeming to follow several lines of thought simultaneously.  Among other things, he was wondering how it was that throughout this conversation he had been so entirely passive.  He had never found himself under the influence of so strong a personality, exerted too in such a strangely quiet way.

‘What are your plans—­your own plans?’ Mr. Wyvern inquired.

‘I have none.’

‘Forgive me;—­there will be no material difficulties?’

‘None; I have four hundred a year.’

‘You have not graduated yet, I believe?’

‘No.  But I hardly think I can go back to school.’

’Perhaps not.  Well, turn things over.  I should like to hear from you.’

‘You shall.’

Hubert continued his walk to the Manor.  Before the entrance stood two large furniture-vans; the doorway was littered with materials of packing, and the hall was full of objects in disorder. footsteps made a hollow resonance in all parts of the house, for everywhere the long wonted conditions of sound were disturbed.  The library was already dismantled; here he could close the door and walk about without fear of intrusion.  He would have preferred to remain in the open air, but a summer shower had just begun as he reached the house.  He could not sit still; the bare floor of the large room met his needs.

His mind’s eye pictured a face which a few months ago had power to lead him whither it willed, which had in fact led him through strange scenes, as far from the beaten road of a college curriculum as well could be.  It was a face of foreign type, Jewish possibly, most unlike that ideal of womanly charm kept in view by one who seeks peace and the heart’s home.  Hubert had entertained no thought of either.  The romance which most young men are content to enjoy in printed pages he had acted out in his life.  He had lived through a glorious madness, as unlike the vulgar oat-sowing of the average young man of wealth as the latest valse on a street-organ is unlike a passionate dream of Chopin.  However unworthy the object of his frenzy—­and perhaps one were as worthy as another—­the pursuit had borne him through an atmosphere of fire, tempering him for life, marking him for ever from plodders of the dusty highway.  A reckless passion is a patent of nobility.  Whatever existence had in store for him henceforth, Hubert could feel that he had lived.

An hour’s communing with memory was brought to an end by the ringing of the luncheon-bell.  Since his illness Hubert had taken meals with his mother in her own sitting-room.  Thither he now repaired.