"I hope people won't suppose that is my ordinary hand," he said, grimly regarding the _John Hazlewood_ of his inscription. During tea Guy wondered when he ought introduce the subject of Pauline. Beyond Godbold's unfortunate allusion on the drive, nothing had been said by either of them; and Plashers Mead had not as yet effected that enchantment of his father's senses which would seem to proclaim the moment as propitious. How remote they were from one another, sitting here at tea! Really his father had not accorded him any salutation more cordial than the coldly absent-minded 'good dog' he had just given to Bob. Yet there must be points of contact in their characters. There must be in himself something of his father. He could not so ridiculously resemble him and yet have absolutely nothing mentally in common. Perhaps his father did himself an injustice by his manner, for after all he had presented him with that £150. If he could only probe by some remark a generous impulse, Guy felt that in himself the affection of wonted intercourse over many years would respond immediately with a warmth of love. His father had cared greatly for his mother; and could not the love they had both known supply them with the point of sympathetic contact that would enable them to understand the ulterior intention of their two diverging lives? "It was awfully good of you, Father, to come down and stay here," said Guy. "I've really been looking forward to showing you the house. I think, perhaps, you understand now how much I've wanted to be here?" Guy waited anxiously. "I've never thought you haven't wanted to be here," his father replied. "But between what we want and what we owe there is a wide gap." Oh, why was a use to be made of these out-of-date weapons? Why could not one or two of his prejudices be surrendered, so that there were a chance of meeting him half-way? "But sometimes," said Guy desperately, "inclination and duty coincide." "Very rarely, I'm afraid, in this world." "Do they in the next then?" asked Guy a little harshly, hating the conventionality of the answer that seemed to crystallize the intellectual dishonesty of a dominie's existence. He knew that the next world was merely an arid postulate which served for a few theorems and problems of education, and that duty and desire must only be kept apart on account of the hierarchical formulae of his craft. He must eternally appear as half-inhuman as all the rest of the Pharisees: priests, lawyers and schoolmasters, they were all alike in relying for their livelihood upon a capacity for depreciating human nature. "I was merely using a figure of speech," said his father. Exactly, thought Guy, and how was he ever to justify his love for Pauline to a man whose opinions could never be expressed except in figures of speech? He made up his mind to postpone the visit to the Rectory until to-morrow. Evidently it was not going to be made even moderately easy to broach the subject of Pauline.