"Be content with being useful to your old father and uncle," said the Admiral. "I hate these rampaging public women, and pray you may never be one of them." "I don't care a button for my generation," said Austin—"wish I did. I loathed all the mangy chaps at Oxford. There were a few who were rather decent chaps, but I would always rather people were useful to me than the other way about. I say, Sid, will you come up Rock Beacon with me after tea? It will be cool enough for a climb. You see how your society is beginning to invigorate me!" "Yes; I am longing for bracing air. We'll go." They started when tea was over. It was not the first time they had climbed the Beacon together. It lay about a mile from them, and as they went, Austin plunged into confidences about his home and the work that was so distasteful to him. "You understand," he said; "I've no one else to grouse to. If I was given a free hand I would work from morning to night and be as happy as a sand-boy, but I have to see all kinds of inane things being done. I know Dobbs is a rogue, and is an adept at cunning and lining his own nest, but the mother implores me to keep worries from the governor, and he, poor chap, thinks that Dobbs is an angel of goodness, and tells me that I'm not to do a thing unless he agrees. I'd chuck it all to-morrow except for the mother. I'm wasting my days, and doing no good." "What good would you be doing if you weren't at home!" Austin looked at Sidney's grave face and laughed. "I'd be storing honey like the busy bees: imbibing knowledge and having a good time generally. No, I wouldn't! It was a mistake going to Oxford. I'm not a scholar. I want to travel. The de Cressiers are as narrow as—as—give me an apt simile!—A thread of silk! I want my mind broadened." "You ought to have had a profession." "It's the eldest son's role to be in the Service—a very stupid arrangement, for he never stays there long." "I don't think it is wise to grumble at what you're doing now, for it is work. You must be a check on Dobbs, and you can't deny that you're a pleasure and comfort to your parents." "Oh, Sid, don't be a stuffy prig!" "Well, don't ask for my opinion then." "Did I?" "You invited it! Of course, you're very young, and you think that life ought to be your servant. You will discover that it may be your master." "A de Cressiers is never mastered by fate!" His merry eyes flashed fire; then he gave a little chuckle. "Didn't I say that like my mother! I believe, after all, I've got the same pride of race at the bottom of my heart." There was a little silence between them; then he said: "Sid, you are changed. What has happened? Has life mastered you?" Sidney laughed, but her laugh had lost its merry ring. "I am climbing," she said, "and we won't philosophise any more. You know what I think about idle men. And I want you to have high ideals, Austin, not low selfish ones."