far as possible
prevent Sir William's susceptibilities from being offended. Rachel sat
with them after dinner while they smoked, then they all went upstairs.

"Now then, father dear, where would you like to be?" she said, looking
round the room for the most comfortable chair. "Here, this looks a very
special corner," and she drew forward an armchair that certainly was in
a most delightful place, looking as if it were destined for the master
of the house, or, at any rate, the most privileged person in it, a
comfortable armchair, with the slanting back that a man loves, and by
it a table with a lamp at exactly the right height. "There," she said,
pushing her father gently into it, "isn't that a comfortable corner?"

"Very," Sir William said, looking up at her with a smile. It truly was a
delight to be tended and fussed over again.

"And now you must have a table in front of you," she said, looking
round. "Let me see--Frank, which shall the chess-table be? Is there a
folding table? Yes, of course there is--that little one that we bought
at Guildford. That one!"--and she clapped her hands with childish
delight as she pointed to it.

Rendel brought forward the little table and opened it.

"Oh, that is exactly the thing," she cried. "See, father, it will just
hold the chess-board. Now then, this is where it shall always
stand--your own table, and your own chair by it."

CHAPTER IX

It is difficult to judge of any course of conduct entirely on its own
merits, when it has a reflex action on ourselves. When Rendel before his
marriage used to go to Prince's Gate and to see Rachel, absolutely
oblivious of herself, hovering tenderly round her mother, watching to
see that her father's wishes were fulfilled, that unselfish devotion and
absorption in filial duty seemed to him the most entirely beautiful
thing on this earth. But when, instead of being the spectator of the
situation, he became an active participator in it, when the stream of
Rachel's filial devotion was diverted from that of her conjugal duties,
it unconsciously assumed another aspect in his eyes. But not for worlds
would he have put into words the annoyance he could not help feeling,
and Rachel was entirely unconscious of his attitude. The devoted,
uncritical affection for her father which had grown up with her life was
in her mind so absolutely taken for granted as one of the foundations of
existence, that it did not even occur to her that Rendel might