here not countries in
which their degree of kin is no bar to matrimony? Mrs. Rossall was of
the women who like the flavour of respectful worship in all men who are
neither father, brother, nor son. Wilfrid had fallen short of this, and
hence the affectation with which she had persisted in regarding him as a
schoolboy. His latest exploits were vastly more interesting to her than
anything he had done in academic spheres, and she suffered a sense of
exclusion in seeing him so determined to disregard her opinion.

She persuaded him to row her cut one evening on a lake by which they
were spending a few days. Wilfrid, suspecting that she aimed at a
_tete-a-tete_, proposed that his father should accompany them. Mrs.
Rossall overruled the suggestion.

'How wonderfully you are picking up,' she said, after watching him pull
for a few minutes. 'Do you know, Wilf, your tendency is to stoutness; in
a few years you will be portly, if you live too sedentary a life.'

He looked annoyed, and by so doing gratified her. She proceeded.

'What do you think I overheard one of our spectacled friends say this
morning--"_Sehen Sie mal_,"--you were walking at a little
distance--"_da haben Sie das Muster des englischen Aristokraten_. _O,
der gute, schlichte Junge_!"'

Wilfrid had been working up his German. He stopped rowing, red with
vexation.

'That is a malicious invention,' he declared.

'Nothing of the kind! The truth of the remark struck me.'

'I am obliged to you.'

'But, my dear boy, what is there to be offended at? The man envied you
with all his heart; and it is delightful to see you begin to look so
smooth about the cheeks.'

'I am neither an aristocrat, nor _schlicht_!'

'An aristocrat to the core. I never knew any one so sensitive on points
of personal dignity, so intolerant of difference of opinion in others,
so narrowly self-willed! Did you imagine yourself to have the air of a
hero of romance, of the intense school?'

Wilfrid looked into her eyes and laughed.

'That is your way of saying that you think my recent behaviour
incongruous. You wish to impress upon me how absurd I look from the
outside?'

'It is my way of saying that I am sorry for you.'

He laughed again.

'Then the English aristocrat is an object of your pity?'

'Certainly; when he gets into a false position.'

'Ah!--well, suppose we talk of something else. Look at the moon rising
over that shoulder of the hill.'

'That, by way of proving that