Ralph paced back again to the hearthrug and stood there, looking steadily down at his patron. It somehow seemed as if in those few moments he had passed from boyhood altogether, even Sir Matthew noted the change in his look and bearing. “The only thing,” he resumed, “in which I ever saw you really exert yourself was in that play at the end of the season. I quite admit that you learnt the part of _Charles Surface_ at very short notice and that you acted it far better than any amateur I ever had the pain of watching. But to play a part in ‘The School for Scandal’ is one thing, and to be fit to play your part in life is another. You will never, I am convinced, be sharp enough for the Indian Civil Service, I shall not permit you to go in again for it next year. I have already wasted too much upon you and shall not throw good money after bad. That’s always a mistake.” Ralph could not calmly stand by and hear his whole future overturned without a word; he broke in eagerly, perhaps rashly. “Yet many have failed the first time and afterwards turned out well,” he pleaded. “The standard of age, too, is likely to be raised they say. I would work my hardest. If you will let me try again----” But once more Sir Matthew gave that expressive downward wave of the hand. “No,” he said peremptorily, “You have had your chance and lost it. Still, I am loth to turn my back altogether on an old friend’s son, and for my own satisfaction I offer you one more opportunity. I will make a parson of you. Do you remember that snug little vicarage up in the north of England where last year we went to call on a Mr. Crosbie? Years ago the Mactavishes owned the living; it had been in the family for generations. My father at a time when he was pressed for money sold it to old Crosbie. I have long wished to have the property again, and only to-day Crosbie happened to be in town and I got him to promise me that if I bought the living he would undertake to retire in four years. You had better not tell it in Gath, for of course the promise to retire is a strictly private matter, but for the rest it’s all legal enough. Next month you will be twenty. In four years you could be ordained priest, and I will undertake to see you through your training and to put you into this living. It’s three hundred and a house; you could be happy enough up there, and for your father’s sake I am willing to do as much as that for you.” There was something so artificial in those last words that Ralph, whose anger had been rising every moment, now broke forth indignantly. “Is it for his sake that you put before me a temptation of this sort? You surely know--you must know--that my father would never have accepted a living obtained in that way. Had you offered it him, and had it been worth ten times the money, he would not have touched it with a pair of tongs. Why, the thing is rank simony!”