‘His age?’

‘Just one-and-twenty.’

‘The same age as my own boy.’

‘Oh, you have a son?’

’A youngster, studying music in Germany.  I have just been spending a fortnight with him.’

’How delightful!  If only poor Alfred could have pursued some more—­more liberal occupation!  Unhappily, we had small choice.  Friends were good enough to offer him exceptional advantages not long after his father’s death, and I was only too glad to accept the opening.  I believe he is a clever boy; only such a dreadful Radical.’  She laughed, with a deprecatory motion of the hands.  ’Poor Adela and he are at daggers drawn; no doubt it is some terrible argument that detains them now on the road.  I can’t think how he got his views; certainly his father never inculcated them.’

‘The air, Mrs. Waltham, the air,’ murmured the clergyman.

The lady was not quite sure that she understood the remark, but the necessity of reply was obviated by the entrance of the young man in question.  Alfred was somewhat undergrown, but of solid build.  He walked in a sturdy and rather aggressive way, and his plump face seemed to indicate an intelligence, bright, indeed, but of the less refined order.  His head was held stiffly, and his whole bearing betrayed a desire to make the most of his defective stature.  His shake of the hand was an abrupt downward jerk, like a pull at a bell-rope.  In the smile with which he met Mr. Wyvern a supercilious frame of mind was not altogether concealed; he seemed anxious to have it understood that in him the clerical attire inspired nothing whatever of superstitious reverence.  Reverence, in truth, was not Mr. Waltham’s failing.

Mr. Wyvern, as his habit was at introductions, spoke no words, but held the youth’s hand for a few moments and looked him in the eyes.  Alfred turned his head aside uneasily, and was a trifle ruddy in the cheeks when at length he regained his liberty.

‘By-the-by,’ he remarked to his mother when he had seated himself, with crossed legs, ’Eldon has turned up at last.  He passed us in a cab, or so Adela said.  I didn’t catch a glimpse of the individual.’

‘Really!’ exclaimed Mrs. Waltham.  ’He was coming from Agworth station?’

’I suppose so.  There was a trunk on the four-wheeler.  Adela says he looked ill, though I don’t see how she discovered so much.’

‘I have no doubt she is right.  He must have been ill.’

Mr. Wyvern, in contrast with his habit, was paying marked attention; he leaned forward, with a hand on each knee.  In the meanwhile the preparations for tea had progressed, and as Mrs. Waltham rose at the sight of the teapot being brought in, her daughter entered the room.  Adela was taller by half a head than her brother; she was slim and graceful.  The air had made her face bloom, and the smile which was added as she drew near to the vicar enhanced the charm of a countenance at all times charming.