Then he decided that she was not beautiful. She turned her face into another light, and beauty came into it again; another turn and it vanished. A will-o'-the-wisp, the hunting of which became an absorbing pursuit. At lunch René sat opposite her, and hardly ever took his eyes from her face. Only when he seemed in danger of meeting her gaze did he turn away. Once he met her eyes and she smiled, seemed to be considering him gravely and very seriously in the depths of her mind, then dismissed him. "She _is_ beautiful," thought he, and from that moment she had his homage. Presently she appealed to him: "Mr. M'Elroy won't have it that Thrigsby is better than London. What do you say?" "I've never been to London," replied René. "Don't you love Thrigsby?" "It's been my home always. I don't know that I ever thought about it." M'Elroy said: "One thinks about everything nowadays." Something in the young man's tone roused René to protest. "Oh no . . . lots of things one does without . . ." But he swallowed the rest. A sudden flow and ebb of emotion had left him speechless, and he felt utterly foreign to the company and to the charmed atmosphere of the household. Mrs. Smallman talked to him for a little, but he felt that she was speaking through him at her husband, so that he could not keep his face toward her, but was constantly turning toward the Professor as though the reply were to come from him, or would at any rate be worthless without his indorsement. And always the Professor smiled with a vague friendliness that was disconcerting. After the meal he was taken to the study, a long room with books all round the walls, ponderous books, blue books, year after year of reports of learned institutions; reproductions of Italian pictures; photographs of Mrs. Smallman on the mantelpiece, a photograph of Mrs. Smallman on the desk. René was given a large chair and a small cigar, which he began to smoke before he realized what he was doing. He rarely smoked, did not care for it, and presently he dropped the cigar into the fireplace. The Professor stood looking out of the window. Two of the children were playing under the plum-tree. The feeling of being thrust out assailed René. The Professor turned: "Well?" he asked. "What's the trouble?" "My father----" began René. "Ah! Well?" "He deserted my mother a long time ago. He came back. My brother's married." "I see. So you're the only possible breadwinner. Any work in your father? How old is he?" "I don't know how old he is. But work? No." "It's bad luck, but it often happens. I've had to keep my father since he was fifty. What about your family? The name's well known in Thrigsby." So Professor Smallman was the boy his father remembered! René gained confidence. It was something to know that his experience was not singular.