Meanwhile mother and son had settled down in a small house in Elm Park Road. The country house was let on a long lease, as Mrs. Middleton did not wish to have the trouble of keeping it up, preferring to travel for three months in the year. The household consumed but a small part of their revenues, and consequently the amount of money in the family threatened to increase from year to year, despite that Mr. Middleton's good works were continued, and that Paul, going a-slumming, started additional good works on his own account. Mrs. Middleton was only too pleased at Paul's leaving "that nasty dark, close office," asserting it must have injured his health. Besides, her faith in his talents was so absolute that she was certain he would one day be a very great man indeed, whatever the profession he espoused. So she ceded to him for his study perhaps the pleasantest room in the house. It was at the back and opened on to a narrow garden, so that he could saunter out occasionally and pace up and down. As he was here quite isolated, he never felt the need of having rooms elsewhere. Despite the vigilance under which Paul had grown up, he had yet managed to have one or two boyish love-affairs without his parents suspecting anything; and he had at times dreamt of an ideal love and an ideal happiness. But of late he had developed different notions, and had come to pride himself on his freedom from all mawkish sentiment. Notwithstanding this, he was chivalrous enough to believe that women were angels; which belief, curiously enough, was unimpaired by the fact that, in practice, he was a little bit afraid and suspicious of them. Nor did he always find them interesting; he would sooner play a game of chess any day than talk to one of them.