“This rash marriage has altered him,” said the very just man of science in life:  and that meant:  “it has debased him.”

He pursued his reflections.  “I see in him the desperate maturity of a suddenly-ripened nature:  and but for my faith that good work is never lost, what should I think of the toil of my years?  Lost, perhaps to me! lost to him!  It may show itself in his children.”

The Philosopher, we may conceive, has contentment in benefiting embryos:  but it was a somewhat bitter prospect to Sir Austin.  Bitterly he felt the injury to himself.

One little incident spoke well of Richard.  A poor woman called at the hotel while he was missing.  The baronet saw her, and she told him a tale that threw Christian light on one part of Richard’s nature.  But this might gratify the father in Sir Austin; it did not touch the man of science.  A Feverel, his son, would not do less, he thought.  He sat down deliberately to study his son.

No definite observations enlightened him.  Richard ate and drank; joked and laughed.  He was generally before Adrian in calling for a fresh bottle.  He talked easily of current topics; his gaiety did not sound forced.  In all he did, nevertheless, there was not the air of a youth who sees a future before him.  Sir Austin put that down.  It might be carelessness, and wanton blood, for no one could say he had much on his mind.  The man of science was not reckoning that Richard also might have learned to act and wear a mask.  Dead subjects—­this is to say, people not on their guard—­he could penetrate and dissect.  It is by a rare chance, as scientific men well know, that one has an opportunity of examining the structure of the living.

However, that rare chance was granted to Sir Austin.  They were engaged to dine with Mrs. Doria at the Foreys’, and walked down to her in the afternoon, father and son arm-in-arm, Adrian beside them.  Previously the offended father had condescended to inform his son that it would shortly be time for him to return to his wife, indicating that arrangements would ultimately be ordered to receive her at Raynham.  Richard had replied nothing; which might mean excess of gratitude, or hypocrisy in concealing his pleasure, or any one of the thousand shifts by which gratified human nature expresses itself when all is made to run smooth with it.  Now Mrs. Berry had her surprise ready charged for the young husband.  She had Lucy in her own house waiting for him.  Every day she expected him to call and be overcome by the rapturous surprise, and every day, knowing his habit of frequenting the park, she marched Lucy thither, under the plea that Master Richard, whom she had already christened, should have an airing.