"Sidney and I understand one another. She knows about Viola. I’m very glad she’s here. I couldn’t have stayed here without her and little Jane. I suppose the beastly world would say that I’m just amusing myself with a pretty girl, as I can’t be with the girl I love. They might even think there’s some danger in it. But the world doesn’t know love as I know it." He turned to Wilbraham with a smile. "What you did, my friend, you and Granny between you, was to unfit me for the society of men. After being with nobody but men for all this time, I’m glad enough to have two girls as my friends before I go back to it. As for Granny, she’s arranged all that for me, as she’s used to arrange everything, and if she’s disappointed with the outcome of it, I’m afraid it can’t be helped. It’s just that arranging that I have to make my stand against, with as little bother about it as possible." "I’ve said already, and I’ll say it again, that you’re hard on Lady Brent. I fully believe that if you were to tell her about Viola—now—she’d accept it. Then all the secrecy you say you hate would be over." "I think it’s quite possible that she might. I don’t think my mother would. In any case, there’d be questions and difficulties. Viola would be discussed and reckoned up in a way I can’t bear to think of. When the time comes I shall bring Viola here and say: ’This is the girl I love, and she loves me, though I’m not worth anything beside her.’ Then there’ll be no questions and no difficulties, and Viola will take her place here, and we shall be happy for the rest of our lives." "You mean that she’ll take Lady Brent’s place here, I suppose. It’s no good blinking matters." Harry laughed at him. "You always were a persistent old thing," he said, "but I’m very glad to see you again. Tell me about Viola, and what she said to you." Wilbraham found himself, somewhat to his surprise in spite of the preparation he had had, in an atmosphere of serenity, and almost of gaiety. There had been nothing like it in all the years he had lived at Royd Castle. He told himself that unless he had known how it was with Harry he would certainly have thought that the pleasure he obviously took in Sidney’s society was leading to something else. The Grants were there when he arrived. It was a little intimate friendly happy party of which no single member seemed to have a care upon his or her shoulders. Only Mrs. Brent seemed rather out of the stream. Wilbraham saw that he would be invited on the first opportunity to listen to the tale of Mrs. Brent’s dissatisfaction. It was Grant, however, to whom he first talked alone, walking in the garden. Grant could see nothing on the horizon but a prospective marriage between Sir Harry Brent and Lady Sidney Pawle, which appeared to him eminently as one that should give satisfaction to all parties concerned.