It was only twenty-four hours since he was sitting in the box talking to the princess, but this fact did not occur to him. So many thoughts had passed through his mind, he had made such startling resolutions during those twenty-four hours that they seemed a week. The next day passed, and the day after, in the usual routine. Rarely had that routine seemed so dull. “What is the matter with my father, do you think, Jones?” asked Ralph of his old crony, who had been his secret playfellow since he first spun tops and made kite-tails for him. “He seems so strange. Has he been ill, and kept it to himself?” “How can I tell, Master Ralph? How can the likes o’ me understand the likes o’ _him_?” answered Jones. In his heart of hearts, Jones feared that “much learning” was making his master certainly inclined to madness. A few days later came a note from Lady Forwood. “At last,” muttered Dr. Paull, who considered himself somewhat peculiarly treated by “a couple of women,” and attributed his irritable humour to annoyance thereat. But the letter merely asked him to dine to-morrow, and contained no mention of the princess. “But it is pretty certain she is to be there, or I should scarcely have been invited,” he thought. Apart from his profession, he thought very lightly of himself. Since Lilia died he had merged the man in the physician; if one had told him people liked or disliked him as the man, without reference to the professional healer, he would scarcely have believed it. He put the note into his breast-pocket—he was just going to deliver a lecture—said a few words to Ralph, and, stopping the carriage at a telegraph office, wired “With pleasure” to Lady Forwood. He lectured brilliantly that day. The students were astonished at the youthful enthusiasm of their ordinarily calm and logical professor. Returning, he found a letter from Mrs. Mervyn, who was anxious to keep him up to his new good resolutions. Mrs. Mervyn offered to come to town any day and “do his shopping for him.” He talked of his idea of embellishing the Pinewood to Ralph that evening. “You both, you and granny, have more artistic taste than I have,” he said to his son. “Suppose I were to give you _carte blanche_ to refurnish the house—both houses, this is a great deal too shabby—and I will not grumble at the bills?” Ralph acceded to his father’s suggestion joyfully, as he invariably did. But in private he wondered, and pondered. This man, all elation one day and moody abstraction the next, was not the father he had loved and revered. He was metamorphosed. Sir David Forwood lived in one of the fashionable squares. When Hugh’s carriage drove up, it had to wait—another equipage was “setting down” at the hall-door, where there was an awning. “A large party?” he asked the footman who took his hat. “My lady receives after dinner, this evening,” said the man.