“Ay,” said Despard, “you have set out the counters for them but you have never let them play the game. You were interested in making the arrangements, but you had no interest at all in the state of mind which could take advantage of them. Your daughter knows, not only that you take no thought for such matters yourself, but that every phase of your contact with her demands her attention for other matters--clothes, manners, hours, and dates. You have no respect for her preoccupations. Not once, not twice, but fifty times a day, you interrupt her, with a caress, or an errand, or more often a reproof. Yesterday, when she was obviously absorbed in reading that bit of verse to her father, you sent her up-stairs to change her shoes----” “They were wet; she would have caught cold.” “If you had listened you would have seen she had only four more lines to read. You do all this, not only when she is in your domain, at meals and in the drawing-room, but you follow her to her own room and go in without knocking. I venture to say that that child works at night, for the simple reason that to work in this house during the daytime is impossible.” “Really,” said Mrs. Royce, “with the best will in the world I do not understand you. Celia’s friends sometimes seem to feel that I ought to neglect her manners and pronunciation, ought to allow her to become selfish and self-centred, so that she may--” She broke off as if words failed her. “But I have never heard a grown person suggest that such a course would be right.” “Ask your clergyman what is right,” answered Despard. “I am here to tell you what is healthy; I am here to prescribe. Now, notice, please, I do not tell you to change. I don’t think you could. The reactions have taken place too many times. I tell you to go away. We can call it a rest cure. You shall have beautiful surroundings, comfort, and, above all that leisure that recent years have failed to give you. In return I shall ask you to concentrate your mind for a certain number of hours each day.” “You talk,” she cried bitterly, “as if I enjoyed the treadmill of my daily life.” “You have unusual executive ability, and most of us enjoy the use of our powers.” “The best refutation of all that you have said is that I am eager to go,” she returned. “Ah, I cannot tell you how inviting such a prospect seems to me--not to order dinner, not to have to decide and arrange for every one, not to be the pivot of the whole structure. Ah, Dr. Despard, I would so gladly go, but----” “But?” “But what would happen to my family without me?” “They must try looking out for themselves,” he answered. He glanced at his watch, for he was to take a train that afternoon; and Mrs. Royce collected herself enough to touch the bell--it always hung within tempting reach of her hand--and gave Churchley orders to send for the motor and have the doctor’s bags brought down.