A few days after Arthur's memorable conversation with his father, Archibold Masterman entered on one of his recurring fits of gloom. He went about the house silently, ate and drank in silence, took little notice of any member of his family, and sat alone in his office till long past midnight. The causes of his silence were, as usual, inscrutable. Sometimes he looked on Arthur with a long, brooding, wistful gaze, as if he would like to confide in him, but the confidence never came. Possibly if he had followed up his recent burst of tenderness with complete confidence, the boy might have been won. But in Masterman's nature there was a curious element of perversity, which often prevailed over the dictates of reason and even of self-interest. It was this element of perversity that lay at the root of much that seemed complex in his character, exhibiting itself sometimes in gusty tenderness, sometimes in unscrupulous hardness, so that to the casual observer he appeared a man of formidable moods, none of whose actions could be predicated from any precedent experience. Once, when Arthur said timidly, "Can I be of any help to you in the office, sir?" he replied curtly, "None whatever. I'll tell you when I want you," and the boy said no more. His sister had gone away to spend some weeks with a friend, his mother was as silent as his father, and he was left more completely to himself than he had ever been. It was little wonder that he turned eagerly from that gloomy house to the society of such friends as were available. Among these was Hilary Vickars, for whom he had conceived a strong liking. He walked with him occasionally in the afternoons, but as yet Arthur had not visited the house. Another friend, whose house was always open to him, and had been since he was a boy, was a certain Mrs. Bundy, a motherly, cheerful, eccentric Scotchwoman. She was a person of extraordinary slovenliness and good-humour, indefatigably kind, generous, and light-hearted, who had been so used to carrying burdens herself that she cheerfully shouldered other people's burdens as a kind of right. Every one knew where Mrs. Bundy lived; lonely Scotch youths who had come to London to push their fortunes found in her an ardent sympathiser; and should one come to her sick with the shame of some sudden defeat of virtue, he never failed to find in her a shrewd and optimistic friend. Over such youths she exercised a directorship as complete as that of a Jesuit Father; she inspected with a jealous eye their morals and their underwear; mended for them, dosed them when they had colds, fed them with anything that came to hand, took charge of their money, made them small loans, and addressed them with apostolic fervour upon the perils and the pitfalls of London life.