‘What would your opinion have been?’ Wilfrid asked.

’Simply that for an idle fancy, the unfortunate result of unoccupied days, you were about to take a step which would assuredly lead to regret at least, very probably to more active repentance.  In fact, I should have warned you not to spoil your life in its commencement.’

’I think, father, that you would have spoken with too little knowledge of the case.  You can scarcely know Miss Hood as I do.  I have studied her since we came here, and with—­well, with these results.’

Mr. Athel looked up with grave sadness.

’Wilf, this is a deeply unfortunate thing, my boy.  I grieve over it more than I can tell you.  I am terribly disappointed.  Your position and your hopes pointed to very different things.  You have surprised me, too; I thought your mind was already made up, in quite a different quarter.’

‘You refer to Miss Redwing?’

‘Naturally.’

’You have, indeed, been mistaken.  It was impossible that I should think of her as a wife.  I must have sympathy, intellectual and moral.  With her I have none.  We cannot talk without flagrant differences—­differences of a serious, a radical nature.  Be assured that such a thought as this never occurred to Miss Redwing herself; her very last conversation with me forbids any such idea.’

Mr. Athel still drummed on the book, seemingly paying little heed to the speaker.

‘You find sympathy in Miss Hood?’ he asked suddenly, with a touch of sarcasm.

’The deepest.  Her intellectual tendencies are the same as my own; she has a mind which it. refreshes and delights me to discover.  Of course that is not all, but it is all I need speak of.  I know that I have chosen well and rightly.’

‘I won’t be so old-fashioned,’ remarked Mr. Athel, still with subdued sarcasm, ’as to hint that some thought of me might have entered into your choosing’ (did he consciously repeat his own father’s words of five-and-twenty years back, or was it but destiny making him play his part in the human comedy?) ‘and, in point of fact’ (perhaps the parallel touched him at this point), ’you are old enough to judge the affair on its own merits.  My wonder is that your judgment has not been sounder.  Has it occurred to you that a young lady in Miss Hood’s position would find it at all events somewhat difficult to be unbiassed in her assent to what you proposed?’

‘Nothing has occurred to me,’ replied Wilfrid, more shortly than hitherto, ’which could cast a shadow of suspicion on her perfect truth.  I beg that you will not suggest these things.  Some day you will judge her with better knowledge.’

‘I am not sure of that,’ was the rejoinder, almost irritably uttered.

‘What do you mean by that, father?’ Wilfrid asked in a lower tone.

’I mean, Wilf, that I am not yet in the frame of mind to regard the children’s governess as my daughter-in-law.  Miss Hood may be all you say; I would not willingly be anything but scrupulously just.  The fact remains that this is not the alliance which it became you to make.  It is, in a very pronounced sense, marrying beneath you.  It is not easy for me to reconcile myself to that.’