And, brushing his son aside, Mr. Plantagenet stuck his hat on jauntily just a trifle askew, with ponderous airiness, and strolled down the steps as he adjusted his Inverness cape on his ample shoulders, with the air of a gentleman seeking his club, with his martial cloak around him. For in point of fact it had occurred to Mr. Plantagenet as they sat at supper that, if he burst in upon the White Horse as the first bearer of such novel and important gossip--how his son Richard was shortly going to enter as an undergraduate at Durham College, Oxford--not only would he gain for himself great honour and glory, but also some sympathizing friend, proud to possess the privilege of acquaintance with so distinguished a family, would doubtless mark his sense of the dignity of the occasion by offering its head the trifling hospitality of a brandy-and-soda. And since brandy-and-soda formed the mainspring of Mr. Plantagenet's scheme of being, so noble an opportunity for fulfilling the end and aim of his existence, he felt sure, was not to be lightly neglected. He strolled out, all smiles, apologetic, but peremptory. As soon as he was gone, the three remaining elders glanced hard at one another with blank surmise in their eyes; but they said nothing openly. Only, in his heart, Richard blamed himself with bitter blame for his unwonted indiscretion in blurting out the whole truth. He knew that by ten to-morrow morning all the world of Chidding-wick would have heard of his projected little trip to Oxford. When the younger ones were gone to bed, the three still held their peace and only looked at each other. Mutual shame prevented them from ever outwardly commenting on the father's weaknesses. Maud was the first to break the long deep silence. 'After this, Dick,' she said decisively, 'there's no other way out of it. You've burnt your boats. If you kill yourself to do it, you must win that Scholarship!' 'I must,' Dick answered firmly. 'And what's more, I will. I'll get it or die for it. I could never stand the disgrace, now, of coming back empty-handed to Chiddingwick without it.' 'Perhaps,' Mrs. Plantagenet suggested, speaking boldly out the thought that lurked in all their minds, 'he won't say a word of it.' Maud and Dick looked up at her with incredulous amazement. 'Oh, mother!' was all they could say. They knew their father's moods too well by far to buoy themselves up with such impossible expectations. 'Well, it seals the business, anyhow,' Dick went on, after a moment's pause. 'I _must_ get it now, that's simply certain. Though, to be sure, I don't know that anything could make me try much harder than I'd have tried before, for your sake, mother, and for Maud's, and the children's, and the honour of the family.'