’It is very good of you to say so.—­But I fear that I am an indifferent host.  Although you would not care for an illustration, there may be other things which you might find amusing.’

‘Why do you keep on snubbing me?’

‘I keep on snubbing you!’

’You are always snubbing me,—­you know you are.  Some times I feel as if I hated you.’

‘Miss Grayling!’

‘I do!  I do!  I do!’

‘After all, it is only natural.’

’That is how you talk,—­as if I were a child, and you were,—­oh I don’t know what.—­Well, Mr Atherton, I am sorry to be obliged to leave you.  I have enjoyed my visit very much.  I only hope I have not seemed too intrusive.’

She flounced—­’flounce’ was the only appropriate word!—­out of the room before I could stop her.  I caught her in the passage.

‘Miss Grayling, I entreat you—­’

‘Pray do not entreat me, Mr Atherton.’  Standing still she turned to me.  ’I would rather show myself to the door as I showed myself in, but, if that is impossible, might I ask you not to speak to me between this and the street?’

The hint was broad enough, even for me.  I escorted her through the hall without a word,—­in perfect silence she shook the dust of my abode from off her feet.

I had made a pretty mess of things.  I felt it as I stood on the top of the steps and watched her going,—­she was walking off at four miles an hour; I had not even ventured to ask to be allowed to call a hansom.

It was beginning to occur to me that this was a case in which another blow upon the river might be, to say the least of it, advisable—­and I was just returning into the house with the intention of putting myself into my flannels, when a cab drew up, and old Lindon got out of it.

CHAPTER XX

A HEAVY FATHER

Mr Lindon was excited,—­there is no mistaking it when he is, because with him excitement means perspiration, and as soon as he was out of the cab he took off his hat and began to wipe the lining.

’Atherton, I want to speak to you—­most particularly—­somewhere in private.’

I took him into my laboratory.  It is my rule to take no one there; it is a workshop, not a playroom,—­the place is private; but, recently, my rules had become dead letters.  Directly he was inside, Lindon began puffing and stewing, wiping his forehead, throwing out his chest, as if he were oppressed by a sense of his own importance.  Then he started off talking at the top of his voice,—­and it is not a low one either.

‘Atherton, I—­I’ve always looked on you as a—­a kind of a son.’

‘That’s very kind of you.’

’I’ve always regarded you as a—­a level-headed fellow; a man from whom sound advice can be obtained when sound advice—­is—­is most to be desired.’

‘That also is very kind of you.’

’And therefore I make no apology for coming to you at—­at what may be regarded as a—­a strictly domestic crisis; at a moment in the history of the Lindons when delicacy and common sense are—­are essentially required.’