In fact, by the evening of the second day of the visit it was obvious that Clinton St. Mary Vicarage might, very possibly, witness a disturbed Christmas. It was all very tiresome for poor Mrs. Lasher. On the late afternoon of Christmas Eve, Hugh heard the stormy conversation that follows--a conversation that altered the colour and texture of his after-life as such things may, when one is still a child. IV Christmas Eve was always, to Hugh, a day with glamour. He did not any longer hang up his stocking (although he would greatly have liked to do so), but, all day, his heart beat thickly at the thought of the morrow, at the thought of something more than the giving and receiving of presents, something more than the eating of food, something more than singing hymns that were delightfully familiar, something more than putting holly over the pictures and hanging mistletoe on to the lamp in the hall. Something there was in the day like going home, like meeting people again whom one had loved once, and not seen for many years, something as warm and romantic and lightly coloured _and_ as comforting as the most inspired and impossible story that one could ever, lying in bed and waiting for sleep, invent. To-day there was no snow but a frost, and there was a long bar of saffron below the cold sky and a round red ball of a sun. Hugh was sitting in a corner of Mr. Lasher's study, looking at Doré's "Don Quixote," when the two gentlemen came in. He was sitting in a dark corner and they, because they were angry with one another, did not recognise any one except themselves. Mr. Lasher pulled furiously at his pipe and Mr. Pidgen stood up by the fire with his short fat legs spread wide and his mouth smiling, but his eyes vexed and rather indignant. "My dear Pidgen," said Mr. Lasher, "you misunderstand me, you do indeed! It may be (I would be the first to admit that, like most men, I have my weakness) that I lay too much stress upon the healthy, physical, normal life, upon seeing things as they are and not as one would like to see them to be. I don't believe that dreaming ever did any good to any man!" "It's only produced some of the finest literature the world has ever known," said Mr. Pidgen. "Ah! Genius! If you or I were geniuses, Pidgen, that would be another affair. But we're not; we're plain, common-place humdrum human beings with souls to be saved and work to do--work to do!" There was a little pause after that, and Hugh, looking at Mr. Pidgen, saw the hurt look in his eyes deepen. "Come now, Lasher," he said at last. "Let's be honest one with another; that's your line, and you say it ought to be mine. Come now, as man to man, you think me a damnable failure now--beg pardon--complete failure--don't you? Don't be afraid of hurting me. I want to know!"