ed him to scorn the pageantry of long-descended fools as
strongly as he did the blind image-breaking of the mob; but in a case
of personal relations temperament carried it over judgment in a very
high-handed way. Youth and disappointment weighed in the scale of
unreason. Mutimer, on the other hand, though fortune helped him to
forbearance, saw, or believed he saw, the very essence of all he most
hated in this proud-eyed representative of a county family. His own
rough-sculptured comeliness corresponded to the vigour and practicality
and zeal of a nature which cared nothing for form and all for substance;
the essentials of life were to him the only things in life, instead
of, as to Hubert Eldon, the mere brute foundation of an artistic super
structure. Richard read clearly enough the sentiments with which his
visitor approached him; who that is the object of contempt does not
readily perceive it? His way of revenging himself was to emphasise a
tone of good fellowship, to make it evident how well he could afford
to neglect privileged insolence. In his heart he triumphed over the
disinherited aristocrat; outwardly he was civil, even friendly.

Hubert had made this call with a special purpose.

'I am charged by Mrs. Eldon,' he began, 'to thank you for the courtesy
you have shown her during my illness. My own thanks likewise I hope you
will accept. We have caused you, I fear, much inconvenience.'

Richard found himself envying the form and tone of this deliverance; he
gathered his beard in his hands and gave it a tug.

'Not a bit of it,' he replied. 'I am very comfortable here. A bedroom
and a place for work, that's about all I want.'

Hubert barely smiled. He wondered whether the mention of work was meant
to suggest comparisons. He hastened to add--

'On Monday we hope to leave the Manor.'

'No need whatever for hurry,' observed Mutimer, good-humouredly. 'Please
tell Mrs. Eldon that I hope she will take her own time.' On reflection
this seemed rather an ill-chosen phrase; he bettered it. 'I should be
very sorry if she inconvenienced herself on my account.'

'Confound the fellow's impudence!' was Hubert's mental comment. 'He
plays the forbearing landlord.'

His spoken reply was: 'It is very kind of you. I foresee no difficulty
in completing the removal on Monday.'

In view of Mutimer's self-command, Hubert began to be aware that his own
constraint might carry the air of petty resentment Fear of that drove
him upon