Grafton was not unimpressed by this frank disclosure, though the not unimportant fact that the lady's husband had proved himself a rank failure in his matrimonial relations had been ignored in her telling of the story. And it would be a dismal business if the full return of his child to him were to depend upon a like failure on the part of the man she should marry. Certainly he didn't want that for her. If she _should_ marry the fellow it was to be hoped that she would be happy with him, and he himself would do nothing to come between them. Nevertheless, the reminder that the fervour of love need not be expected to keep up to concert pitch, when the sedative effect of marriage had had time to cool it, did bring him some consolation, into which he did not look too closely. It would be soothing if the dear child were to discover that her old Daddy stood for something, after all, which she could not get even from her husband, and that he would regain his place apart, and be relieved of the hard necessity of taking in and digesting an alien substance in order to get any flavour out of her love for him. He never would and never could get used to the fellow; he felt that now, and told the sympathetic lady so. She replied that one could get used to anything in this life, and in some cases it was one's duty to do so. She was no mere cushiony receptacle for his grievances. She had a mind of her own, and the slight explorations he had made into it pleased and interested him. He was not so loud in his praises of her as his daughters, but it was plain that he liked to see her at the Abbey, and it was always safe to accept an invitation for him to Surley if he was absent when it was given. Mrs. Carruthers was not riding that morning. Out of deference to her exalted guest and various others of weight and substance, invited to meet him, she was hunting on wheels. Some of them would view such episodes of the chase as could, with luck, be seen from the seats of a luxurious motor-car, but she was driving his lordship himself in her pony-cart, quite in the old style in vogue before the scent of the fox had begun to dispute its sway in the hunting-field with that of petrol. It was years since the Bishop had come as close as this to one of the delights of his youth, and he showed himself mildly excited by it, and talked to Barbara about hounds and horses in such a way as to earn from her the soubriquet of "a genuine lamb." He was too important, however, to be allowed more than a short conversation with one of Barbara's age, and was reft from her before she could explore very far into the unknown recesses of a prelatical mind. She was rewarded, however, for the temporary deprivation--she had other opportunities on the following day--by coming in for Ella Carruthers's sparkling description of the disturbance caused in the clerical nest of Surley by her uncle's visit.