The Rector had a troublesome trick of asking everybody who crossed his threshold in the afternoon to dinner. He had an abiding idea that his friends wanted to be fed; that they would rather dine with him than go home; and that if they refused, their refusal was mere modesty and self-denial, and ought not to be accepted. Vainly had Rhoda lectured her spouse upon this evil habit, vainly had she tried to demonstrate to him that an afternoon visit should be received as such, and need not degenerate into a dinner-party. The Rector was incorrigible. Hospitality was his redeeming virtue. ‘Thanks awfully,’ replied Daphne; ‘but I must go home to dinner. Papa and Lina expect me. Of course Mr. Turchill can do as he likes.’ ‘Then Turchill will stay,’ said the Rector. ‘My dear Rector, you are very kind, but I must go home with Daphne. I brought her, don’t you see, and I’m bound to take her back. There might be a bull, or something.’ ‘Do you think I am afraid of bulls?’ cried Daphne; ‘why I love the whole cow tribe. If I saw a bull in one of our meadows, I should walk up to him and make friends.’ The Rector surveyed the yellow damsel with an unctuous smile. ‘It would be dangerous,’ he said in his fat voice, ‘if I were the bull.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I should be tempted to imitate an animal famous in classic story, and swim the Avon with you on my back,’ replied the Rector. ‘Duke,’ said Mrs. Ferrers, with her blandest smile, ‘don’t you think you had better rest yourself in your cool study while we take our tea? I’m sure you must be tired after your long drive. These first warm days are so exhausting. I’ll bring you your cup of tea.’ ‘Don’t trouble yourself, my love,’ replied the Rector; ‘Daphne can wait upon me. Her legs are younger than yours.’ This unflattering comparison, to say nothing of the vulgar allusion to ‘legs,’ was too much for Rhoda’s carefully educated temper. She gave her Marmaduke a glance of undisguised displeasure. ‘I am not so ancient or infirm as to find my duties irksome,’ she said severely; ‘I shall certainly bring you your tea.’ The Rector had a weakness about pretty girls. There was no harm in it. He had lived all his life in an atmosphere of beauty, and no scandal had ever arisen about peeress or peasant. He happened to possess an artistic appreciation of female loveliness, and he took no trouble to disguise the fact. Youth and beauty and freshness were to him as the very wine of life—second only to actual Cliquot, or Roederer, Clos Vougeot, or Marcobrünner. His wife was too well acquainted with this weakness. She had known it years before she had secured Marmaduke for her own; and she had flattered herself that she could cure him of this inclination to philander; but so far the curative process had been a failure.