"You're no fool, or you'd never have been put to the trouble of refusin' my shop," observed Jack with emphasis. "And in the end I'm not sure but what you're right. I've never tried to rise above where I was born; but I don't know as there's any call for you to step down. I don't know as I did my duty by the old gentleman in temptin' you. I'm not sure he'd have liked it, though he'd have said nothing; he'd never have let me see--not him!" He sighed and smiled over his reverential memories of the old gentleman, yet his eyes twinkled rather maliciously as he said to Andy, "Dinin' at Halton again to-night?" "No," laughed Andy, "I'm not. I'm coming to supper with you if you'll have me. What have you got?" "Cold boiled aitch-bone, and apple-pie, and a Cheshire in good condition." "Oh, that's prime! But I must go and change first. I've walked fifteen or sixteen miles, and I must get into a clean shirt." "We don't dress for supper--not o' Sundays," Jack informed him gravely. "Oh, get out, Jack!" called Andy from the door. "Supper at nine precise, carriages at eleven," Jack called after him, pursuing his joke to the end with keen relish. Andy walked back to his lodgings, in the old phrase "happy as a king," and infinitely the happier because old Jack had taken it so well, had understood, and, though disappointed, had not been hurt or wounded. There was no breach in their affection or in their mutual confidence. And now, he felt, he had to justify himself in Jack's eyes, to justify his refusal of a safe five hundred pounds a year. The refusal became, as he thought over it, a spur to effort, to action. "I must put my back into it," said Andy to himself, and made up his mind to most strenuous exertions to develop that rather shy and coy timber business of his in London. Yet, after he had changed, as he sat listening to the church bells ringing for evening service, a softer strain of meditation mingled with these stern resolves. Memories of his "Saturday-off" glided across his mind, echoes of this evening's encounter with Harry and Vivien sounded in his ears. There was, as old Jack Rock himself had ended by suggesting, no call for him to step down. He could take the place for which he was naturally fit. He need not renounce that side of life of which he had been allowed a glimpse so attractive and so full of interest. The shop in Meriton would have opened the door to one very comfortable little apartment. How many doors would it not have shut? All doors were open now. "I thought you were going to be a friend of ours." Andy, sitting in the twilight, listening to the bells, smiled at the echo of those regretful words. He cherished their kindliness, and smiled at their prejudice. The shop and Vivien were always connected in his mind since the first day he had met her. Her words came back to him now, summing up all that he would have lost by acceptance, hinting pregnantly at all that his refusal might save or bring.