"Oh, Frank's always unexpected!"

"Yes, I know; but this happens to be just the one very thing--"

She looked at him humorously.

"Do you know, I'd no notion that Lord Talgarth was so deeply religious until Frank became a Catholic."

"Yes, I know," said d.i.c.k. "But it is just his one obsession. Frank must have known that."

"And I've not the slightest doubt," said Jenny, "that that was an additional reason for his doing it."

"Well, what'll happen?"

She jerked her head a little.

"Oh! it'll pa.s.s off. You'll see. Frank'll find out, and then we shall all be happy ever afterwards."

"But meantime?"

"Oh! Frank'll go and stay with friends a month or two. I daresay he'll come to the Kirkbys', and I can go and see him."

"Suppose he does something violent? He's quite capable of it."

"Oh! I shall talk to him. It'll be all right. I'm very sensible indeed, you know. All my friends tell me that."

d.i.c.k was silent.

"Don't you think so?"

"Think what?"

"That I'm very sensible."

d.i.c.k made a little movement with his head.

"Oh! I suppose so. Yes, I daresay.... And suppose my uncle cuts him off with a shilling? He's quite capable of it. He's a very heavy father, you know."

"He won't. I shall talk to him too."

"Yes; but suppose he does?"

She threw him a swift glance.

"Frank'll put the shilling on his watch-chain, after it's been shown with all the other wedding-presents. What are you going to give me, Mr.

d.i.c.k?"

"I shall design a piece of emblematic jewelry," said d.i.c.k very gravely.

"When's the wedding to be?"

"Well, we hadn't settled. Lord Talgarth wouldn't make up his mind. I suppose next summer some time."

"Miss Jenny--"

"Yes?"

"Tell me--quite seriously--what you'd do if there was a real row--a permanent one, I mean--between Frank and my uncle?"

"Dear Mr. d.i.c.k--don't talk so absurdly. I tell you there's not going to be a row. I'm going to see to that myself."

"But suppose there was?"

Jenny stood up abruptly.

"I tell you I'm a very sensible person, and I'm not going to imagine absurdities. What do you want me to say? Do you want me to strike an att.i.tude and talk about love in a cottage?"

"Well, that would be one answer."

"Very well, then. That'll do, won't it? You can take it as said.... I'm going to see what's happening."

But as she went to the door there came footsteps and voices outside; and the next moment the door opened suddenly, and Lord Talgarth, followed by his son and the Rector, burst into the room.

(II)

I am very sorry to have to say it, but the thirteenth Earl of Talgarth was exactly like a man in a book--and not a very good book. His character was, so to speak, cut out of cardboard--stiff cardboard, and highly colored, with gilt edges showing here and there. He also, as has been said, resembled a n.o.bleman on the stage of the Adelphi. He had a handsome inflamed face, with an aquiline nose and white eyebrows that moved up and down, and all the other things; he was stout and tall, suffered from the gout, and carried with him in the house a black stick with an india-rubber pad on the end. There were no shades about him at all. Construct a conventionally theatrical heavy father, of n.o.ble family, and you have Lord Talgarth to the life. There really are people like this in the world--of whom, too, one can prophesy, with tolerable certainty, how they will behave in any given situation.

Certainly, Lord Talgarth was behaving in character now. He had received meek Mr. Mackintosh's deferential telegram, occupying several sheets, informing him that his son had held an auction of all his belongings, and had proposed to take to the roads; asking, also, for instructions as to how to deal with him. And the hint of defiant obstinacy on the part of Frank--the fact, indeed, that he had taken his father at his word--had thrown that father into a yet more violent fit of pa.s.sion.

Jenny had heard him spluttering and exclamatory with anger as she came into the hall (the telegram had but that instant been put into his hands), and even now the footmen, still a little pale, were exchanging winks in the hall outside; while Clarkson, his valet, and the butler stood in high and subdued conference a little way off.

What Lord Talgarth would really have wished was that Frank should have written to him a submissive--even though a disobedient--letter, telling him that he could not forego his convictions, and preparing to a.s.sume the _role_ of a Christian martyr. For he could have sneered at this, and after suitable discipline forgiven its writer more or less. Of course, he had never intended for one instant that his threats should really be carried out; but the situation--to one of Lord Talgarth's temperament--demanded that the threats should be made, and that Frank should pretend to be crushed by them. That the boy should have behaved like this brought a reality of pa.s.sion into the affair--disconcerting and infuriating--as if an actor should find his enemy on the stage was armed with a real sword. There was but one possibility left--which Lord Talgarth instinctively rather than consciously grasped at--namely, that an increased fury on his part should once more bring realities back again to a melodramatic level, and leave himself, as father, master both of the situation and of his most disconcerting son. Frank had behaved like this in minor matters once or twice before, and Lord Talgarth had always come off victor. After all, he commanded all the accessories.

When the speeches had been made--Frank cut off with a shilling, driven to the Colonies, brought back again, and finally starved to death at his father's gates--Lord Talgarth found himself in a chair, with Jenny seated opposite, and the rest of the company gone to dinner. He did not quite realize how it had all been brought about, nor by whose arrangement it was that a plate of soup and some fish were to come presently, and Jenny and he to dine together.

He pulled himself together a little, however, and began to use phrases again about his "graceless son," and "the young villain," and "not a penny of his." (He was, of course, genuinely angry; that must be understood.)

Then Jenny began to talk.

"I think, you know," she said quietly, "that you aren't going the right way to work. (It's very impertinent of me, isn't it?--but you did say just now you wanted to hear what I thought.)"

"Of course I do; of course I do. You're a sensible girl, my dear. I've always said that. But as for this young--"

"Well, let me say what I think. (Yes, put the soup down here, will you.

Is that right, Lord Talgarth?)." She waited till the man was gone again and the old man had taken up his spoon. Then she took up her own. "Well, I think what you've done is exactly the thing to make Frank more obstinate than ever. You see, I know him very well. Now, if you'd only laughed at him and patted his head, so to speak, from the beginning, and told him you thought it an excellent thing for a boy of his character, who wants looking after--"

Lord Talgarth glared at her. He was still breathing rather heavily, and was making something of a noise over his soup.