easantness is rather a defect than a faculty. It shows that a
man hasn't sense enough to know whom to despise.'

'It shows that he acts by faith and not by sight, as those you claim
succession from directed.'

'That's some more of what he's been telling you, I suppose! Yes, I was
inclined to suspect him, because he didn't care about sauces of any
kind. I always did doubt a man's being a gentleman if his palate had no
acquired tastes. An unedified palate is the irrepressible cloven foot
of the upstart. The idea of my bringing out a bottle of my '40
Martinez--only eleven of them left now--to a man who didn't know it from
eighteenpenny! Then the Latin line he gave to my quotation; it was very
cut-and-dried, very; or I, who haven't looked into a classical author
for the last eighteen years, shouldn't have remembered it. Well,
Elfride, you had better go to your room; you'll get over this bit of
tomfoolery in time.'

'No, no, no, papa,' she moaned. For of all the miseries attaching to
miserable love, the worst is the misery of thinking that the passion
which is the cause of them all may cease.

'Elfride,' said her father with rough friendliness, 'I have an excellent
scheme on hand, which I cannot tell you of now. A scheme to benefit you
and me. It has been thrust upon me for some little time--yes, thrust
upon me--but I didn't dream of its value till this afternoon, when the
revelation came. I should be most unwise to refuse to entertain it.'

'I don't like that word,' she returned wearily. 'You have lost so much
already by schemes. Is it those wretched mines again?'

'No; not a mining scheme.'

'Railways?'

'Nor railways. It is like those mysterious offers we see advertised,
by which any gentleman with no brains at all may make so much a week
without risk, trouble, or soiling his fingers. However, I am intending
to say nothing till it is settled, though I will just say this much,
that you soon may have other fish to fry than to think of Stephen Smith.
Remember, I wish, not to be angry, but friendly, to the young man; for
your sake I'll regard him as a friend in a certain sense. But this is
enough; in a few days you will be quite my way of thinking. There, now,
go to your bedroom. Unity shall bring you up some supper. I wish you not
to be here when he comes back.'

Chapter X

'Beneath the shelter of an aged tree.'

Stephen retraced his steps towards the cottage he had visited only
two or three hours