over the lake, straight up
and down the long side of the house. They had not had the advantage,
since the servants were in the room, of talking over the situation as
they wished, and there was no knowing when Lord Talgarth and Jenny might
emerge. So they sat down at a little stone table at the end furthest
from the smoking-room, and Archie and Dick lit their cigarettes.
There is not a great deal to say about the Rector. The most effective
fact about him was that he was the father of Jenny. It was a case, here,
of "Averill following Averill": his father and grandfather, both second
sons, as was the Rector himself, had held the living before him, and had
performed the duties of it in the traditional and perfectly respectable
way. This one was a quiet middle-aged man, clean-shaven except for two
small whiskers. He wore a white tie, and a small gold stud was visible
in the long slit of his white shirt-front. He was on very easy terms in
this house, in an unintimate manner, and dined here once a fortnight or
so, without saying or hearing anything of particular interest. He had
been secretly delighted at his daughter's engagement, and had given his
consent with gentle and reserved cordiality. He was a Tory, not exactly
by choice, but simply--for the same reason as he was Church of
England--because he was unable, in the fiber of him, to imagine anything
else. Of course, Lord Talgarth was the principal personage in his world,
simply because he was Lord Talgarth and owned practically the whole
parish and two-thirds of the next. He regarded his daughter with the
greatest respect, and left in her hands everything that he decently
could. And, to do her justice, Jenny was a very benevolent, as well as
capable, despot. In short, the Rector plays no great part in this drama
beyond that of a discreet, and mostly silent, Greek chorus of
unimpeachable character. He disapproved deeply, of course, of Frank's
change of religion--but he disapproved with that same part of him that
appreciated Lord Talgarth. It seemed to him that Catholicism, in his
daughter's future husband, was a defect of the same kind as would be a
wooden leg or an unpleasant habit of sniffing--a drawback, yet not
insuperable. He would be considerably relieved if it could be cured.
* * * * *
The three men sat there for some while without interruption from the
smoking-room, while the evening breeze died, the rosy sky paled, and the
stars
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