quite
clear is that I must catch my train. So if I might order the car?"

"Of course, of course."

He came out with his son into the porch of the house.

"We have done a fine thing to-day, Richard," he said with enthusiasm and
a nod towards the cottage beyond the meadow.

"We have indeed, sir," returned Dick cheerily. "Did you ever see such a
pair of ankles?"

"She lost the tragic look this afternoon, Richard. We must be her
champions."

"We will put in the summer that way, father," said Dick, and waving his
hand was driven off to the station.

Mr. Hazlewood walked back to the library. But "walked" is a poor word. He
seemed to float on air. A great opportunity had come to him. He had
enlisted the services of his son. He saw Dick and himself as Toreadors
waving red flags in the face of a bull labelled Conventionality. He went
back to the pamphlet on which he was engaged with renewed ardour and
laboured diligently far into the night.

CHAPTER XV

THE GREAT CRUSADE

"I was in Great Beeding this morning," said Dick, as he sat at luncheon
with his father, "and the blinds were up in Aunt Margaret's house."

"They have returned from their holiday then," his father observed with a
tremor in his voice. He looked afraid. Then he looked annoyed.

"Pettifer will break down if he doesn't take care," he exclaimed
petulantly. "No man with any sense would work as hard as he does. He
ought to have taken two months this year at the least."

"We should still have to meet Aunt Margaret at the end of them," said
Dick calmly. He had no belief in Mr. Hazlewood's distress at the overwork
of Pettifer.

A month had passed since the inauguration of the great Crusade, and
though talk was rife everywhere and indignation in many places loud, a
certain amount of success had been won. But all this while Mrs. Pettifer
had been away. Now she had returned. Mr. Hazlewood stood in some awe of
his sister. She was not ill-natured, but she knew her mind and expressed
it forcibly and without delay. She was of a practical limited nature; she
saw very clearly what she saw, but she walked in blinkers, and had
neither comprehension of nor sympathy with those of a wider vision. She
was at this time a woman of forty, comfortable to look upon and the wife
of Mr. Robert Pettifer, the head of the well-known firm of solicitors,
Pettifer, Gryll and Musgrave. Mrs. Pettifer had very little patience to
spare for the idiosyncrasies of her brother,