On the father’s face displeasure had succeeded to mere astonishment.

‘You could have told me few things that I should be so sorry to hear,’ were his first words, delivered in an undertone and with grave precision.

‘Surely that does not express your better thought,’ said Wilfrid, to whom a hint of opposition at once gave the firmness he had lacked.

’It expresses my very natural thought.  In the first place, it is not pleasant to know that clandestine proceedings of this kind have been going on under my roof.  I have no wish to say anything disrespectful of Miss Hood, but I am disposed to think that she has mistaken her vocation; such talents for dissimulation would surely have pointed to—­’

Mr. Athel had two ways of expressing displeasure.  Where ceremony was wholly unnecessary, he gave vent to his feelings in an outburst of hearty English wrath, not coarsely, for his instincts were invariably those of a gentleman, but in the cultivated autocratic tone; an offending. groom, for instance, did not care to incur reproof a second time.  Where this mode of utterance was out of place, he was apt to have recourse to a somewhat too elaborate irony, to involve himself in phrases which ultimately led to awkward hesitations, with the effect that he grew more heated by embarrassment. ’lad he been allowed to proceed, he would at present have illustrated this failing, for he had begun with extreme deliberation, smoothing the open pages with his right hand, rounding his words, reddening a little in the face.  But Wilfrid interposed.

‘I must not let you speak or think of Miss Hood so mistakenly,’ he said firmly, but without unbecoming self-assertion.  ’She could not possibly have behaved with more reserve to me than she did until, three days ago, I myself gave a new colour to our relations.  The outward propriety which you admit has been perfectly genuine; if there is any blame in the matter—­and how can there be any?—­it rests solely upon me.  I dare say you remember my going out to fetch the “Spectator,” after Miss Redwing had been singing to us.  By chance I met Miss Hood in the garden.  I was led to say something to her which made a longer interview inevitable; she consented to meet me on the common before breakfast, the following morning.  These are the only two occasions which can be called clandestine.  If she has disguised herself since then, how could she have behaved otherwise?  Disguise is too strong a word; she has merely kept silence.  I need not inquire whether you fully believe what I say.’

‘What you say, I believe, as a matter of course,’ replied Mr. Athel, who had drummed with his fingers as he listened impatiently.  ’It can scarcely alter my view of the position of things.  Had you come to me before offering yourself to this young lady, and done me the honour of asking my advice, I should in all probability have had a rather strong opinion to express; as it is, I don’t see that there is anything left to be said.’