Meanwhile Ancram lived with Philip Doyle in Hungerford Street under the ordinary circumstances which govern Calcutta bachelors. Doyle was a barrister. He stood, in Calcutta, upon his ability and his individuality, and as these had been observed to place him in familiar relations with Heads of Departments, it may be gathered that they gave him a sufficient elevation. People called him a “strong” man because he refused their invitations to dinner, but the statement might have had a more intelligent basis and been equally true. It would have surprised him immensely if he could have weighed the value of his own opinions, or observed the trouble which men who appropriated them took to give them a tinge of originality. He was a survival of an older school, certainly—people were right in saying that. He had preserved a courtliness of manner and a sincerity of behaviour which suggested an Anglo-India that is mostly lying under pillars and pyramids in rank Calcutta cemeteries now. He was hospitable and select—so much of both that he often experienced ridiculous annoyance at having asked men to dinner who were essentially unpalatable to him. His sensitiveness to qualities in personal contact was so great as to be a conspicuous indication, to the discerning eye, of Lewis Ancram’s unbounded tact. Circumstances had thrown the men under one roof, and even if the younger of them had not made himself so thoroughly agreeable, it would have been difficult to alter the arrangement. It could never be said of Lewis Ancram that he did not choose his friends with taste, and in this case his discrimination had a foundation of respect which he was in the habit of freely mentioning. His admiration of Doyle was generous and frank, so generous and frank that one might have suspected a virtue in the expression of it. Notwithstanding this implication, it was entirely sincere, though he would occasionally qualify it. “I often tell Doyle,” he said once to Rhoda, “that his independence is purely a matter of circumstance. If he had the official yoke upon his neck he would kow-tow like the rest of us.” “I don’t believe that,” she answered quickly. “Ah well, now that I think of it I don’t particularly believe it myself. Doyle’s the salt of the earth anyhow. He makes it just possible for officials like myself to swallow officialdom.” “Did it ever occur to you,” she asked slowly, “to wonder what he thinks of you?” “Oh, I daresay he likes me well enough. Irishmen never go in for analysing their friends. At all events we live together, and there are no rows.” They were driving, and the dogcart flew past the ships along the Strand—Ancram liked a fast horse—for a few minutes in silence. Then she had another question. “Have you succeeded in persuading Mr. Doyle to—what do the newspapers say?—support you at the altar, yet?”