"Well, as I have told you before," Rendel said, "I don't see why there should be any limit to one's intentions. The man who intends little is not likely to achieve much." "That's all very well, and plausible enough, I dare say," said Wentworth, "but the way to achieve is not to begin by refusing all your chances." "This is too delightful from you," said Rendel, "who never do anything at all." "Not at all," said Wentworth. "It is on principle that I do nothing, in order to protest against other people doing too much. I wish to have an eight hours' day of elegant leisure, and to go about the world as an example of it. It would be just as inconsistent of me to accept a regular occupation as it is of you to refuse it." "I have a very simple reason for refusing this," said Rendel more seriously, and he paused. "I am a married man." "To be sure, my dear fellow," said Wentworth, "I have noticed it." "My wife didn't want to go to Africa," said Rendel, "and there was an end of it." "Oh, that was the end of it?" said Wentworth. "Absolutely," said Rendel. "She did not want to leave her father." "Ah, is that it?" said Wentworth, feeling that he could not decently advance an urgent plea against Sir William. "Poor old man! I know he's gone to pieces frightfully since his wife died--still, couldn't some one have been found to take care of him?" "Hardly any one like Rachel," Rendel said. "Naturally," said Wentworth. "You know he is living with us?" Rendel said. "Is he?" said Wentworth surprised. "Upon my word, Frank, you are a good son-in-law." Rendel ignored the tone of Wentworth's last remark and said quite simply-- "Oh! well, there was nothing else to be done. He's been ill, you know, really rather bad; first he had a chill, and then influenza on the top of it. He's frightfully low altogether." "But I rather wonder," said Wentworth, "as Mrs. Rendel had her father with her, that you didn't go to Africa without her. Wouldn't that have been possible?" "No," said Rendel decidedly. "Quite impossible." "I should have thought," said Wentworth, "that in these enlightened days a husband who could not do without his wife was rather a mistake." "That may be," said Rendel. "But I think on the whole that the husband who can do without her is a greater mistake still." "It is a great pity you were not born five hundred years ago," said Wentworth. "I should have disliked it particularly," said Rendel. "I should have been fighting at Flodden, or Crecy, or somewhere, and I should have been too old to marry Rachel, even in these days of well-preserved centenarians. It is no good, Jack; I am afraid you must leave me to my folly."