It was Wilfrid’s turn to keep silence.  What became of his plans?  They were hardly in a way to be carried out as he had conceived them.  A graver uneasiness was possessing him.  Resolve would only grow by opposition, but there was more of pain in announcing an independent course than he had foreseen.

‘What are your practical proposals?’ his father inquired, his mollified tone the result of observing that he had made a certain impression, for he was distinctly one of the men who are to be overcome by yielding.

’I had a proposal to make, but of such a kind that it is hardly worth while to speak of it.  I shall have to reflect.’

’Let me hear what you were going to say.  There’s no harm in that, at all events.’

’My idea was, that, with your consent and my aunt’s, Miss Hood should return just as if nothing had happened, and continue to teach the twins till next summer, when I should have done with Oxford.  There appears to me to be nothing irrational or unseemly in such a plan.  If she were our cook or housemaid, there might be reasonable objections.  As it is, it would hardly involve a change even in your tone to her, seeing that you are in the habit of treating her as a lady, and with a certain degree of familiar kindness.  I confess I had anticipated no difficulties.  We are not a household of bigoted Conservatives; it is hard for me to imagine you taking any line but that of an enlightened man who judges all things from the standpoint of liberal reflection.  I suppose my own scorn of prejudices is largely due to your influence.  It is not easy to realise our being in conflict on any matter involving calm reasonableness.’

In another this would have been a shrewd speech.  Wilfrid was incapable of conscious artifice of this kind; this appeal, the very strongest he could have made to his father, was urged in all sincerity, and derived its force from that very fact.  He possessed not a little of the persuasive genius which goes to make an orator—­hereafter to serve him in fields as yet undreamed of—­and natural endowment guided his feeling in the way of most impressive utterance.  Mr. Athel smiled in spite of himself.

‘And what about your aunt?’ he asked.  ’Pray remember that it is only by chance that Miss Hood lives under my roof.  Do you imagine your aunt equally unprejudiced?’

Mr. Athel was, characteristically, rather fond of side-glancings at feminine weaknesses.  An opportunity of the kind was wont to mellow his mood.

‘To be quite open in the matter,’ Wilfrid replied, ’I will own that my first idea was to take you alone into my confidence; to ask you to say nothing to Aunt Edith.  Miss Hood felt that that would be impossible, and I see that she was right.  It would involve deceit which it is not in her nature to practise.’

‘You and Miss Hood have discussed us freely,’ observed the father, with a return to his irony.

‘I don’t reply to that,’ said Wilfrid, quietly.  ’I think you must give me credit for the usual measure of self-respect; and Miss Hood does not fall short of it.’