‘That’s right. And there’s no particular reason for putting things off, is there? So come to us as soon as you can. To-morrow, or the day after. You won’t want to stay much longer with those Hoope-Arkwright people. And I should like you to get accustomed to us and the place before we go off to my place in Yorkshire and our son Jim comes home.’ And so, after a few more faint demurrings, Ivor Restormel, bewildered and dazed by the rapid development of events, found himself pledged to take up his residence at Brakelond with the least possible delay. Matters being thus settled to Kingston’s satisfaction, he allowed his visitor to depart, and then began to brace himself to the task of breaking his latest plan to Gundred. The good wife neither raves nor flouts. But, if she be good enough, she has the power of being quite wonderfully disagreeable in a mild and dutiful manner. Gundred had never countered Kingston with any ill-bred vehemence, but by now he knew that on occasions she could don a pious resignation inexpressibly hard to bear. Some such display, he was afraid, might greet his announcement, for, to his experienced eye, it was already plain that she did not approve of Ivor Restormel. Her sweetness to him had had a certain glacial tone which Kingston well knew. He anticipated that she might make difficulties. But events were moving too rapidly for Gundred’s orderly habit of mind. She was too much taken aback when she heard the arrangement that her husband had made to offer any coherent or valid opposition. A vague passion of wrath possessed her, and her anger lost half its efficacy with all its usual crushing calm. For Gundred, the imperturbably gentle and correct, so far forgot herself as to combat Kingston’s plan with violent obloquy. Never before had he seen her unreasonable, or hysterically bellicose; and the unusual spectacle, so far from compelling his sympathy, only hardened his decision by its contrast with her usual well-regulated temper. Had a glimpse of the past been vouchsafed to him, after all these years, that he should now forego the agonizing joy of it, simply because his wife chose to abandon herself to a groundless antipathy against a young man, a perfect stranger, in whom she, of all people, could certainly not discern that inmost inhabitant whose presence gave him so strong a claim on Kingston? No, her foolishness justified him in disregarding her opposition.