Mr. Eglett hereupon threw the door open, and ushered in Master Leo.

Lady Charlotte noticed that the tutor shook the boy’s hand offhandedly, with not a whit of the usual obtrusive geniality, and merely dropped him a word.  Soon after, he was talking to Mr. Eglett of games at home and games abroad.  Poor fun over there!  We head the world in field games, at all events.  He drew a picture of a foreigner of his acquaintance looking on at football.  On the other hand, French boys and German, having passed a year or two at an English school, get the liking for our games, and do a lot of good when they go home.  The things we learn from them are to dance, to sing, and to study:—­they are more in earnest than we about study.  They teach us at fencing too.  The tutor praised fencing as an exercise and an accomplishment.  He had large reserves of eulogy for boxing.  He knew the qualities of the famous bruisers of the time, cited fisty names, whose owners were then to be seen all over an admiring land in prints; in the glorious defensive-offensive attitude, England’s own—­ Touch me, if you dare! with bullish, or bull-dog, or oak-bole fronts for the blow, handsome to pugilistic eyes.

The young tutor had lighted on a pet theme of Mr. Eglett’s—­the excelling virtues of the practice of pugilism in Old England, and the school of honour that it is to our lower population.  “Fifty times better for them than cock-fighting,” he exclaimed, admitting that he could be an interested spectator at a ring or the pit cock-fighting or ratting.

“Ratting seems to have more excuse,” the tutor said, and made no sign of a liking for either of those popular pastimes.  As he disapproved without squeamishness, the impulsive but sharply critical woman close by nodded; and she gave him his dues for being no courtier.

Leo had to be off to bed.  The tutor spared him any struggle over the shaking of hands, and saying, “Goodnight, Leo,” continued the conversation.  The boy went away, visibly relieved of the cramp that seizes on a youngster at the formalities pertaining to these chilly and fateful introductions.

“What do you think of the look of him?” Mr. Eglett asked.

The tutor had not appeared to inspect the boy.  “Big head,” he remarked.  “Yes, Leo won’t want pushing at books when he’s once in harness.  He will have six weeks of me.  It’s more than the yeomanry get for drill per annum, and they’re expected to know something of a soldier’s duties.  There’s a chance of putting him on the right road in certain matters.  We’ll walk, or ride, or skate, if the frost holds to-morrow:  no lessons the first day.”

“Do as you think fit,” said lady Charlotte.

The one defect she saw in the tutor did not concern his pupil.  And a girl, if hit, would be unable to see that this tutor, judged as a man, was to some extent despicable for accepting tutorships, and, one might say, dishonouring the family of a soldier of rank and distinction, by coming into houses at the back way, with footing enough to air his graces when once established there.  He ought to have knocked at every door in the kingdom for help, rather than accept tutorships, and disturb households (or providently-minded mistresses of them) with all sorts of probably groundless apprehensions, founded naturally enough on the good looks he intrudes.