Lord Lipscombe entering the room just then, Sir Austin surveyed him, and was not astonished at the refusal of the country to take him.

“Wild oats!” he thought, as he contemplated the headless, degenerate, weedy issue and result.

Both Darley Absworthy and Lord Heddon spoke of the marriage of their offspring as a matter of course.  “And if I were not a coward,” Sir Austin confessed to himself, “I should stand forth and forbid the banns!  This universal ignorance of the inevitable consequence of sin is frightful!  The wild oats plea is a torpedo that seems to have struck the world, and rendered it morally insensible.”  However, they silenced him.  He was obliged to spare their feelings on a subject to him so deeply sacred.  The healthful image of his noble boy rose before him, a triumphant living rejoinder to any hostile argument.

He was content to remark to his doctor, that he thought the third generation of wild oats would be a pretty thin crop!

Families against whom neither Thompson lawyer nor Bairam physician could recollect a progenitorial blot, either on the male or female side, were not numerous.  “Only,” said the doctors “you really must not be too exacting in these days, my dear Sir Austin.  It is impossible to contest your principle, and you are doing mankind incalculable service in calling its attention to this the gravest of its duties:  but as the stream of civilization progresses we must be a little taken in the lump, as it were.  The world is, I can assure you—­and I do not look only above the surface, you can believe—­the world is awakening to the vital importance of the question.”

“Doctor,” replied Sir Austin, “if you had a pure-blood Arab barb would you cross him with a screw?”

“Decidedly not,” said the doctor.

“Then permit me to say, I shall employ every care to match my son according to his merits,” Sir Austin returned.  “I trust the world is awakening, as you observe.  I have been to my publisher, since my arrival in town, with a manuscript ’Proposal for a New System of Education of our British Youth,’ which may come in opportunely.  I think I am entitled to speak on that subject.”

“Certainly,” said the doctor.  “You will admit, Sir Austin, that, compared with continental nations—­our neighbours, for instance—­we shine to advantage, in morals, as in everything else.  I hope you admit that?”

“I find no consolation in shining by comparison with a lower standard,” said the baronet.  “If I compare the enlightenment of your views—­for you admit my principle—­with the obstinate incredulity of a country doctor’s, who sees nothing of the world, you are hardly flattered, I presume?”

Doctor Bairam would hardly be flattered at such a comparison, assuredly, he interjected.

“Besides,” added the baronet, “the French make no pretences, and thereby escape one of the main penalties of hypocrisy.  Whereas we!—­but I am not their advocate, credit me.  It is better, perhaps, to pay our homage to virtue.  At least it delays the spread of entire corruptness.”