Mr. Challoner did not at once begin the work which he wished to finish before bedtime when Martin left him, but sat with his head resting on his hand, thinking very deeply. He was much troubled and perplexed, and his future line of action, usually so clear to him, so precisely indicated by his sense of duty, and, to do him justice, so undeviatingly followed, was now very misty and ill defined. Hitherto he had never entertained any serious doubts that he was not doing the best possible for Martin, both in always correcting and admonishing when he seemed to be idle, even in trifles where some small carelessness on his part indicated the danger of his falling into slack or slovenly habits, and in his convictions that school and college education in classical subjects was the best possible method of training and developing his mind. He did not in the least even now, with regard to the latter, think it certain that he was mistaken, but it had been brought home to him very clearly in the last twenty-four hours that other people thought he was. For his brother’s opinion he always felt a considerable respect, but for Lady Sunningdale’s, though he wondered at it, he could not help feeling more. A dozen times yesterday at dinner, a dozen times more this afternoon, he had asked himself how the observations of a woman who really appeared to be scarcely capable of consecutive orderly thought could be worth consideration, but as often some plump grain of solid sense, showing acuteness and perception amid the husks and chaff, answered the question. He himself was conscious of not being quite at his ease with her, but he could not help admiring her intense vitality, her speed, her busy, acute inquisitiveness. And it was she who hailed Martin, poor, desultory, idle Martin, as a genius.