ng the direction in
which she drove her dog-cart--and even these were calculated to avoid
the giving of pain. As for the Tristrams--where were they? They seemed
to have dropped out of Janie's story.

Iver needed comfort. There is no disguising it, however much the
admission may damage him in the eyes of that same orthodox
sentimentalist. He had once expounded his views to Mr Jenkinson Neeld
(or rather one of his expositions of them has been recorded, there
having been more than one)--and the present situation did not satisfy
them. Among other rehabilitations and whitewashings, that of the cruel
father might well be undertaken by an ingenious writer; if Nero had had
a grown-up daughter there would have been the chance! Anyhow the attempt
would have met with some sympathy from Iver. Of course a man desires his
daughter's happiness (the remark is a platitude), but he may be allowed
to feel annoyance at the precise form in which it realizes--or thinks
it will realize--itself, a shape that may disappoint the aim of his
career. If he is provided with a son, he has the chance of a more
unselfish benevolence; but Iver was not. Let all be said that could be
said--Bob Broadley was a disappointment. Iver would, if put to it, have
preferred Duplay. There was at least a cosmopolitan polish about the
Major; drawing-rooms would not appal him nor the thought of going to
Court throw him into a perspiration. Iver had been keen to find out the
truth about Harry Tristram, as keen as Major Duplay. At this moment both
of them were wishing that the truth had never been discovered by them
nor flung in the face of the world by Harry himself.

"But darling Janie will be happy," Mrs Iver used to say. She had
surrendered very easily.

He was not really an unnatural parent because he growled once or twice,
"Darling Janie be hanged!" It was rather his wife's attitude of mind
that he meant to condemn.

Bob himself was hopeless from a parent's point of view. He was actually
a little touched by Mrs Trumbler's way of looking at the world; he did
think--and confessed it to Janie--that there was something very
remarkable in the way Harry Tristram had been cleared from his path. He
was in no sense an advanced thinker, and people in love are apt to
believe in what are called interpositions. Further, he was primitive in
his ideas; he had won the lady, and that seemed to him enough. It was
enough, if he could keep her; and in these days that really depend