But he never answered a word. “It would not be a bad idea if I had the old lady up for a couple of months, and took the Hibberts’ house,” he said to himself. The idea grew upon him. He imagined the dinners he could give to his staff and their wives—not to the outside world, for it bothered him. “We might ask Ethel Dunlop occasionally,” he thought; “a nice girl in her twenties, fond of pleasure, would brighten up the old lady.” He remembered the twenties with regret, and wished they were thirties; then he would not have felt so keenly the difference in years between them. But he reflected that after all he was still in the prime of life, as a man is, if he chooses, till he is fifty; and he struggled to feel youthful; but struggle as he would, youthful feelings held aloof. They were coy after forty, he supposed, and looking back he consoled himself by thinking that they had been rather foolish. Then he thought of Ethel’s cousin; confound her cousin! she seemed to like going about with him. Perhaps he made love to her; yet he was too much of a hobble-de-hoy for that, surely—three-and-twenty at most—a very objectionable time of life in the masculine sex, a time of dash and impudence and doing of things from sheer bravado at which wisdom, knowledge, and middle age hesitated. Ethel was probably only amusing herself with him. To fall in love with a cousin would show a lack of originality of which he was slow to suspect her. He wondered what the cousin did, and if he wanted a post of any sort; if he had a turn for writing and adventure. Perhaps he could be sent as special correspondent to the Gold Coast, where the climate would probably sufficiently engross him. Ethel at any rate might be invited to see his mother, it would cheer the old lady up to have a girl about her. Yes, he had quite made up his mind. Mrs. Hibbert should go to her country cottage with her two children; he would take the house near Portland Road for a couple of months, and the rest would arrange itself. “I don’t know whether Walter would like it,” Florence said, when Mr. Fisher had explained his errand.