as not an agreeable scene, and it may be said that Lady Honoria
was a vulgar person. But not even the advantage of having been brought
up "on the knees of marchionesses" is a specific against vulgarity, if
a lady happens, unfortunately, to set her heart, what there is of it,
meanly on mean things.

CHAPTER VIII

EXPLANATORY

About two o'clock Geoffrey rose, and with some slight assistance from
his reverend host, struggled into his clothes. Then he lunched, and
while he did so Mr. Granger poured his troubles into his sympathetic
ear.

"My father was a Herefordshire farmer, Mr. Bingham," he said, "and I was
bred up to that line of life myself. He did well, my father did, as
in those days a careful man might. What is more, he made some money by
cattle-dealing, and I think that turned his head a little; anyway, he
was minded to make 'a gentleman of me,' as he called it. So when I was
eighteen I was packed off to be made a parson of, whether I liked it or
no. Well, I became a parson, and for four years I had a curacy at a
town called Kingston, in Herefordshire, not a bad sort of little
town--perhaps you happen to know it. While I was there, my father,
who was getting beyond himself, took to speculating. He built a row of
villas at Leominster, or at least he lent a lawyer the money to build
them, and when they were built nobody would hire them. It broke my
father; he was ruined over those villas. I have always hated the sight
of a villa ever since, Mr. Bingham. And shortly afterwards he died, as
near bankruptcy as a man's nose is to his mouth.

"After that I was offered this living, L150 a year it was at the best,
and like a fool I took it. The old parson who was here before me left
an only daughter behind him. The living had ruined him, as it ruins me,
and, as I say, he left his daughter, my wife that was, behind him, and
a pretty good bill for dilapidations I had against the estate. But there
wasn't any estate, so I made the best of a bad business and married
the daughter, and a sweet pretty woman she was, poor dear, very like
my Beatrice, only without the brains. I can't make out where Beatrice's
brains come from indeed, for I am sure I don't set up for having any.
She was well born, too, my wife was, of an old Cornish family, but she
had nowhere to go to, and I think she married me because she didn't know
what else to do, and was fond of the old place. She took me on with it,
as it were. Well, it turned out pret