Richard could not but contrast this willing and eager service with the frigid obedience which was paid to him as the future owner of the soil. Had he been other than he was, he might have found a lesson in the contrast, and have penetrated the simple secret of Desmond’s popularity, which lay more in his sunny good-temper, his quick sympathy, his courage and generosity, than in the physical superiorities which so galled his cousin’s envious mind. Ideas, it has been said, were not common with Richard, but the evening of the events just recorded was made additionally memorable to him by the implanting of a new one in his mind. He had happened to pass on the terrace below the open window of the drawing-room during the conversation held between Lord Kilpatrick and the faithful Peebles. The window was open, and the calm evening air had brought one single utterance of the old servant’s distinctly to his ears. ‘There’s just a chance,’ the deliberate Scotch voice had said, ‘that Desmond, when he kens ye’re his father, will refuse to tak’ a shilling o’ your money.’ Now, the moment Richard was made aware of Desmond’s illegitimacy, the secret began to tremble at his lips. He longed to dash the insolent triumph of the nameless adventurer who diminished his chances of succession, and by every morsel he ate seemed to lessen the future possessions of the rightful heir. He was only restrained from insulting Desmond on the score of his birth by his father’s strenuous assurance that to touch on that matter might be to lose his uncle’s favour at once and for ever. Conseltine senior had impressed that belief on him very forcibly. Richard rolled the sweet morsel of insolence round his tongue a score of times, with a rich anticipation of the time when it should be safe to humiliate his adversary by full publicity.