He looked rather pale but his eyes were steady, and she thought with a
little thrill of pride how like his grandfather he was growing.

He went straight to the study. Mr Ffolliot was seated by the fire with
_Gaston Latour_ open in his hand.

Grantly shut the door, crossed to the fireplace and stood on the
hearth-rug looking down at his father. "I've come to say, father, that
I think we _ought_ to ask Mr Gallup to dinner."

"_You_ think we ought to . . ." the Squire paused in breathless
astonishment.

"Yes, sir, I do. And I hope you'll think so too when you hear what
I've got to say."

"Go on," said Mr Ffolliot, laying down his book. "Go on."

It wasn't very easy. Grantly swallowed something in his throat, and
began rather huskily: "You see, sir, we're under an obligation to
Gallup. We are really."

"_We_ are under an obligation. What on earth do you mean?"

"Well I am, father, anyway. You remember the night before the
election----?"

"I don't," the Squire interrupted, "why in the world should I----?"

"Well, sir, it was like this . . . I went to dinner with young Rabbich
at the Moonstone, and I got drunk----"

"You--got--drunk?" the pauses between each word were far more emphatic
than the words themselves.

"Yes, sir, we all had more than was good for us, and we went to the
Radical meeting and made an awful row, and got chucked out and----"

"Look here, Grantly, what has all this to do with young Gallup? It was
idiotic of you to go to his meeting, and the conduct of a vulgar
blockhead to get drunk; but in what way . . ."

"That's not all, sir; after the meeting the bands came into collision,
and I got taken up."

"_You_ got taken up?"

"Two policemen, sir, taking me to the station, and Mr Gallup got me out
of it and gave me a bed in his house."

Mr Ffolliot sat forward in his chair. "You accepted his
hospitality--you slept the night in his house?"

"If I hadn't I'd have slept the night in the lock-up, and it would have
been in the papers."

"But why--why should he have intervened to protect you?"

"Do you think, sir"--Grantly's voice was very shy--"that it might be
because we both come from the same place?"

"He doesn't belong to the village."

"In a way he does; there have been Gallups in Redmarley nearly as long
as us."

Mr Ffolliot said nothing. He sat staring at his tall young son as if
he were a new person.

Grantly fidgetted and flushed and paled under this steady
co