Richard smiled at the feeble glimmer of enjoyment promised by his uncle’s eyes, and said he thought it better they should stay where they were—­an answer that might mean anything.  Hippias immediately became possessed by the beguiling project.  He went to the baronet, and put the matter before him, instancing doctors as the object of his journey, not quacks, of course; and requesting leave to take Richard.  Sir Austin was getting uneasy about his son’s manner.  It was not natural.  His heart seemed to be frozen:  he had no confidences:  he appeared to have no ambition—­to have lost the virtues of youth with the poison that had passed out of him.  He was disposed to try what effect a little travelling might have on him, and had himself once or twice hinted to Richard that it would be good for him to move about, the young man quietly replying that he did not wish to quit Raynham at all, which was too strict a fulfilment of his father’s original views in educating him there entirely.  On the day that Hippias made his proposal, Adrian, seconded by Lady Blandish, also made one.  The sweet Spring season stirred in Adrian as well as in others:  not to pastoral measures:  to the joys of the operatic world and bravura glories.  He also suggested that it would be advisable to carry Richard to town for a term, and let him know his position, and some freedom.  Sir Austin weighed the two proposals.  He was pretty certain that Richard’s passion was consumed, and that the youth was now only under the burden of its ashes.  He had found against his heart, at the Bellingham inn:  a great lock of golden hair.  He had taken it, and the lover, after feeling about for it with faint hands, never asked for it.  This precious lock (Miss Davenport had thrust it into his hand at Belthorpe as Lucy’s last gift), what sighs and tears it had weathered!  The baronet laid it in Richard’s sight one day, and beheld him take it up, turn it over, and drop it down again calmly, as if he were handling any common curiosity.  It pacified him on that score.  The young man’s love was dead.  Dr. Clifford said rightly:  he wanted distractions.  The baronet determined that Richard should go.  Hippias and Adrian then pressed their several suits as to which should have him.  Hippias, when he could forget himself, did not lack sense.  He observed that Adrian was not at present a proper companion for Richard, and would teach him to look on life from the false point.

“You don’t understand a young philosopher,” said the baronet.

“A young philosopher’s an old fool!” returned Hippias, not thinking that his growl had begotten a phrase.

His brother smiled with gratification, and applauded him loudly:  “Excellent! worthy of your best days!  You’re wrong, though, in applying it to Adrian.  He has never been precocious.  All he has done has been to bring sound common sense to bear upon what he hears and sees.  I think, however,” the baronet added, “he may want faith in the better qualities of men.”  And this reflection inclined him not to let his son be alone with Adrian.  He gave Richard his choice, who saw which way his father’s wishes tended, and decided so to please him.  Naturally it annoyed Adrian extremely.  He said to his chief: