over my son, I think," he
remarked.

"I don't think she would wish to deny that she has favored this
arrangement so far as she properly and legitimately could. She was
naturally desirous of promoting Miss Octon's happiness. If in other
respects the marriage was a very desirable one--well, she was entitled
to think of that also."

"You consider that Miss Octon's feelings are deeply engaged in this
matter?"

"If you ask me, I think the two young people are as much in love as any
young couple could be."

"I know my son's feelings; he has made me aware of them. And Miss Driver
thinks this marriage desirable?"

"She charged me to express the great pleasure she would take in it, if
it met with your approval."

He sat silent for a moment, his hand up to his mouth as he bit his
finger nail. For reasons I have given, to follow the trend of his
thoughts was quite beyond my powers of discernment.

"I suppose I seem to her--and perhaps to you--a very ineffectual
person?" he went on in his even voice, with his dull eyes (like a gas
jet turned low to save the light!)--"I have the bad luck to stand
half-way between two schools--two generations--of ideas. When I was
born, men of my order still had fortunes; nowadays many of them have to
set out to make fortunes--or at least careers--like other people. I've
been stranded half-way. The fortunes of my house are gone; I've neither
the power nor the taste to try to retrieve them; and I'm too old. Public
life used to be the thing, but I've not the manners for that." His
chilly smile came again. "So I sit on, watching the ruins falling into
more utter ruin still."

It was not for me to say anything to that. But I had a new sympathy for
him. His room, again, seemed to add a silent confirmation of all he
said.

"Once I did try to retrieve the situation. You know how--and how the
attempt ended. It served me right--and I've learned the lesson. Now the
same woman asks me for my son."

"Not for herself!"

"No, thank God!"

He said that very deliberately--not carried away, meaning to let me have
it for all it was worth. Well, my diplomacy failed--or I fear so. I did
not like to hear him thank God for being quit of Jenny.

"She might have," I declared impulsively.

"I think you're right. She's a very clever woman. Young men are wax in
hands like that."

"Shall we get back from what isn't in question to what is, Lord
Fillingford?"

"I don't think that the digression was due to