t his youth. He
was gently called to order by his secretary. Scorrier was asked for his
opinion. He looked at Hemmings. "My importance is concerned," was
written all over the secretary's face. Moved by an impulse of loyalty to
Pippin, Scorrier answered, as if it were all settled: "Well, let me know
when you are starting, Hemmings--I should like the trip myself."

As he was going out, the chairman, old Jolyon Forsyte, with a grave,
twinkling look at Hemmings, took him aside. "Glad to hear you say that
about going too, Mr. Scorrier; we must be careful--Pippin's such a good
fellow, and so sensitive; and our friend there--a bit heavy in the hand,
um?"

Scorrier did in fact go out with Hemmings. The secretary was sea-sick,
and his prostration, dignified but noisy, remained a memory for ever; it
was sonorous and fine--the prostration of superiority; and the way in
which he spoke of it, taking casual acquaintances into the caves of his
experience, was truly interesting.

Pippin came down to the capital to escort them, provided for their
comforts as if they had been royalty, and had a special train to take
them to the mines.

He was a little stouter, brighter of colour, greyer of beard, more
nervous perhaps in voice and breathing. His manner to Hemmings was full
of flattering courtesy; but his sly, ironical glances played on the
secretary's armour like a fountain on a hippopotamus. To Scorrier,
however, he could not show enough affection:

The first evening, when Hemmings had gone to his room, he jumped up like
a boy out of school. "So I'm going to get a wigging," he said; "I
suppose I deserve it; but if you knew--if you only knew...! Out here
they've nicknamed me 'the King'--they say I rule the colony. It's myself
that I can't rule"; and with a sudden burst of passion such as Scorrier
had never seen in him: "Why did they send this man here? What can he know
about the things that I've been through?" In a moment he calmed down
again. "There! this is very stupid; worrying you like this!" and with a
long, kind look into Scorrier's face, he hustled him off to bed.

Pippin did not break out again, though fire seemed to smoulder behind the
bars of his courteous irony. Intuition of danger had evidently smitten
Hemmings, for he made no allusion to the object of his visit. There were
moments when Scorrier's common-sense sided with Hemmings--these were
moments when the secretary was not present.

'After all,' he tol