With head erect and a springy step he gained his own garden,
and even made a pretence of attending to a flower or two before sitting
down. Then the deck-chair claimed him, and he lay, a limp bundle of
aching old bones, until his housekeeper came down the garden to see what
had happened to him.

CHAPTER XX

FOR the first week or two after Joan Hartley's return Mr. Robert Vyner
went about in a state of gloomy amazement. Then, the first shock of
surprise over, he began to look about him in search of reasons for a
marriage so undesirable. A few casual words with Hartley at odd
times only served to deepen the mystery, and he learned with growing
astonishment of the chief clerk's ignorance of the whole affair. A faint
suspicion, which he had at first dismissed as preposterous, persisted
in recurring to him, and grew in strength every time the subject was
mentioned between them. His spirits improved, and he began to speak of
the matter so cheerfully that Hartley became convinced that everybody
concerned had made far too much of ordinary attentions paid by an
ordinary young man to a pretty girl. Misled by his son's behaviour, Mr.
Vyner, senior, began to entertain the same view of the affair.

"Just a boyish admiration," he said to his wife, as they sat alone one
evening. "All young men go through it at some time or other. It's a sort
of--ha--vaccination, and the sooner they have it and get over it the
better."

"He has quite got over it, I think," said Mrs. Vyner, slowly.

Mr. Vyner nodded. "Lack of opposition," he said, with a satisfied air.
"Lack of visible opposition, at any rate. These cases require management.
Many a marriage has been caused by the efforts made to prevent it."

Mrs. Vyner sighed. Her husband had an irritating habit of taking her
a little way into his confidence and then leaving the rest to an
imagination which was utterly inadequate to the task.

"There is nothing like management," she said, safely. "And I am sure
nobody could have had a better son. He has never caused us a day's
anxiety."

"Not real anxiety," said her husband--"no."

Mrs. Vyner averted her eyes. "When," she said, gently--"when are you
going to give him a proper interest in the firm?"

Mr. Vyner thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and leaned back in
his chair. "I have been thinking about it," he said, slowly. "He would
have had it before but for this nonsense. Nothing was arranged at
first, because I wanted to see