"Yes, father, and it really was decent of him, because I went dressed up as a suffragette and had no end of a rag; he might have been awfully shirty, and he wasn't--he never told a soul. Don't you think we ought to ask him?" "Does your mother know about this?" "Of course not, nobody knew except Uz and," Buz added truthfully, "Adèle." "Leave me," said Mr Ffolliot feebly, "I've had about as much as I can bear this afternoon--Go." "You do see, sir, that it makes a difference," pleaded the persistent Buz. "Go," thundered the exasperated Squire. "All right, father, I'm going, but you _do_ see, don't you?" said Buz from the door. CHAPTER XXI A RETROSPECT AND A RESULT Mr Ffolliot was really a much-tried man. Those interviews with Grantly and Buz caused his nerves to vibrate most unpleasantly. So unhinged was he that for quite half an hour after Buz's departure he kept looking nervously at the door, fully expectant that it would open to admit Uz, primed with some fresh reason why Eloquent Gallup should be asked to dinner; and that he would be followed by Ger and the Kitten bent on a similar errand. However, no one else invaded his privacy. The Manor House was very still; the only occasional sound being the soft swish of a curtain stirred by the breeze through the open window. Mr Ffolliot neither read _Gaston Latour_ nor did he write, though his monograph on Ercole Ferrarese was not yet completed. Wrapped in thought he sat quite motionless in his deep chair, and the subject that engrossed him was his own youth; comparing what he remembered of it with these queer, careless sons of his, who seemed born to trouble other people, Mr Ffolliot could not call to mind any occasion when he had been a nuisance to anybody. He honestly tried and wholly failed. Such persons as have been nourished in early youth on Mr Thackeray's inimitable _The Rose and The Ring_ will remember how at the christening of Prince Giglio, the Fairy Blackstick, who was his godmother, said, "My poor child, the best thing I can send you is a little misfortune!" Now the Fairy Blackstick had evidently absented herself from Hilary Ffolliot's christening, for his youth was one long procession of brilliant successes. It is true that his father, an easy-going, amiable clergyman, died during his first term at Harrow, but that did not affect Hilary's material comfort in any way. It left his mother perfectly free to devote her entire attention to him. He was a good-looking, averagely healthy boy, who carried all before him at preparatory school. Easily first in every class he entered, he was quite able to hold his own in all the usual games, and he left for Harrow in a blaze of glory, having obtained the most valuable classical scholarship.