! Was there a long and secret
understanding between these two? They must assuredly be far more
intimate than he had ever suspected. Edwin hated to think that Hilda
would depend more upon Charlie than upon himself in a grave difficulty.
The notion caused him acute discomfort. He was resentful against
Charlie as against a thief who had robbed him of his own, but who could
not be apprehended and put to shame.

The acute discomfort was jealousy; but this word did not occur to him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOUR.

"I say," Edwin began, in a new intimate tone, when after what seemed a
very long interval Charlie Orgreave returned to the breakfast-room with
the information that for the present all had been done that could be
done.

"What's up?" said Charlie, responding quite eagerly to the appeal for
intimacy in Edwin's voice. He had brought in a tray with whisky and its
apparatus, and he set this handily on a stool in front of the fire, and
poked the fire, and generally made the usual ritualistic preparations
for a comfortable talkative night.

"Rather delicate, wasn't it, you coming down and taking Stirling's case
off him?"

Edwin smiled idly as he lolled far back in an old easy chair. His two
individualities had now merged again into one.

"My boy," Charlie answered, pausing impressively with his curly head
held forward, before dropping into an arm-chair by the stool, "you may
take it from me that `delicate' is not the word!"

Edwin nodded sympathetically, perceiving with satisfaction that beneath
his Metropolitan mannerism, and his amusing pomposities, and his
perfectly dandiacal clothes, Charlie still remained the Sunday, possibly
more naive than ever. This naivete of Charlie's was particularly
pleasing to him, for the reason that it gave him a feeling of
superiority to the more brilliant being and persuaded him that the
difference between London and the provinces was inessential and
negligible. Charlie's hair still curled like a boy's, and he had not
outgrown the naivete of boyhood. Against these facts the fact that
Charlie was a partner in a fashionable and dashing practice at Ealing
simply did not weigh. The deference which in thought Edwin had been
slowly acquiring for this Charlie, as to whom impressive news reached
Bursley from time to time, melted almost completely away. In
fundamentals he was convinced that Charlie was an infant compared to
him