"I suppose you know where Bergen is?" added Lord Tarrington. "A little bit near the North Pole—or is it North Cape? I always mix the two. But it’s in _Norway, very_ bracing climate, _awfully_ good sea-fishing, and £350 a year. Or if you prefer heat, there’s Baranquilla, northern South America, _not_ a good climate, but the last man stood it for two years before he succumbed to yellow fever ... and it’s £550 a year and two years count for three in service. Which is it to be? Make up your mind soon, ’cos lots of fellows are on the waiting list—snap at either." Tarrington’s tone, for all its bluff good nature sounded final. Roger seeing his dreams of an African empire fade in that dingy room, all its tones having sombred with twenty years’ fog and smoke into shades of yellow white and yellow brown, felt at first inclined to refuse haughtily either consolation for the loss of Zangia. But a married man and prospective father with very slight resources cannot permit himself the luxury of ill-temper. So he replied civilly that he would think if over and let Lord Tarrington know. As he left the first floor of the building he crossed the path of the august Secretary of State himself walking probably round the quadrangle to the India Office. There was no look of recognition in his deep-set eyes. How different from two and a half years ago when he had been hailed by this statesman as an authority on East Africa far better worth listening to than Mr. Bennet Molyneux, now noting down complacently in his room below the fact that the Consulate at Zangia with its seven hundred pounds a year was to be offered to the acting man, Mr. Spencer Bazzard. Brentham went down that evening—pretending he didn’t care in the least for this definite set-back—to Reading, and, chartering a fly, drove out to Engledene. A rather late little dinner with Sibyl and Aunt Christabel was followed by a long consultation with Sibyl in the Library. Lady Silchester’s plans had long been ready, though she seemed to develop them as she spoke. "Become my agent, Rodge-podge, in place of old Parkins. He’s an out-of-date duffer. I’ll either pension him off, or better still send him to live on the Staffordshire property. He’s let that go down very much; it ought to yield twice its present rents. I’ll give you £700 a year, and there’ll be all sorts of legitimate pickings as well. You can have the Lodge at Englefield to live in. I’ll do it up for you. Lucy can live there and go on having babies for the next ten years. I’m sure _I_ don’t want to ask her to dinner or to anything else, if she doesn’t want to come. She needn’t curtsy to me if we meet, if it’s _that_ she dislikes....