presentation of science at war
with Fortune and the Fates, will be deemed the true epic of modern life;
and the aspect of a scientific humanist who, by dint of incessant
watchfulness, has maintained a System against those active forties,
cannot be reckoned less than sublime, even though at the moment he but
sit upon his horse, on a fine March morning such as this, and smile
wistfully to behold the son of his heart, his System incarnate, wave a
serene adieu to tutelage, neither too eager nor morbidly unwilling to try
his luck alone for a term of two weeks. At present, I am aware, an
audience impatient for blood and glory scorns the stress I am putting on
incidents so minute, a picture so little imposing. An audience will come
to whom it will be given to see the elementary machinery at work: who, as
it were, from some slight hint of the straws, will feel the winds of
March when they do not blow. To them will nothing be trivial, seeing that
they will have in their eyes the invisible conflict going on around us,
whose features a nod, a smile, a laugh of ours perpetually changes. And
they will perceive, moreover, that in real life all hangs together: the
train is laid in the lifting of an eyebrow, that bursts upon the field of
thousands. They will see the links of things as they pass, and wonder
not, as foolish people now do, that this great matter came out of that
small one.

Such an audience, then, will participate in the baronet's gratification
at his son's demeanour, wherein he noted the calm bearing of experience
not gained in the usual wanton way: and will not be without some excited
apprehension at his twinge of astonishment, when, just as the train went
sliding into swiftness, he beheld the grave, cold, self-possessed young
man throw himself back in the carriage violently laughing. Science was at
a loss to account for that. Sir Austin checked his mind from inquiring,
that he might keep suspicion at a distance, but he thought it odd, and
the jarring sensation that ran along his nerves at the sight, remained
with him as he rode home.

Lady Blandish's tender womanly intuition bade her say: "You see it was
the very thing he wanted. He has got his natural spirits already."

"It was," Adrian put in his word, "the exact thing he wanted. His spirits
have returned miraculously."

"Something amused him," said the baronet, with an eye on the puffing
train.

"Probably something his uncle said or did," Lady Blandish suggest