rector got up, and, leaning his arm on the mantel-shelf, felt, if the truth be told, rather uncomfortable. "I do not understand you," he said at length.
"It is what I should have expected from Bonamy. That is all."
"Then you must think him a very ill-conditioned man!" Lindo retorted warmly, scarcely knowing whether the annoyance he felt was a reminiscence of his late conflict or caused by his companion's manner.
"Well, again, what else can you expect?" Clode replied sagely, looking up and shrugging his shoulders. "You know all about him, I suppose?"
"I know nothing," said the rector, frowning slightly.
"He is not a gentleman, you know," the curate answered, still looking up and speaking with languid indolence as if what he said must be known to everyone. "You have heard his history?"
"No, I have not."
"He was an office-boy with Adams & Rooke, the old solicitors here, swept out the office, and brought the coal, and so forth. He had his wits about him, and old Adams gave him his articles, and finally took him into partnership. Then the old men died off and it all came to him. He is well off, and has power of a sort in the town; but, of course," the curate added, getting up lazily and yawning-"well, people like the Hammonds do not visit with him."
There was silence in the room for a full minute. The rector had left the fireplace and, with his back to the speaker, was raising the lamp-wick. "Why did you not tell me this before?" he said at length, his voice hard.
"I did not see why I should prejudice you against the man before you saw him," replied the curate, with much reason. "Besides, I really was not sure whether you knew his history or not. I am afraid I did not give much thought to the matter."
"Umph!"
CHAPTER VII
THE HAMMONDS' DINNER PARTY
The new top, the new book, the bride-the first joy in the possession of each one of these fades, not gradually, but at a leap, as day fades in the tropics. A chip in the wood, the turning of the last page, the first selfish word, and the thing is done; ecstasy becomes sober satisfaction. It was so with the rector. The first glamour of his good fortune, of his new toy, died abruptly with that evening-with the quarrel with his church warden, and the discovery of the cause of that constraint which he had remarked in Kate Bonamy's manner from the first.
He was a conscientious man, and the failure of his good resolutions, his aspirations to be the perfect parish priest, fretted him. Moreover, he had to think of the future. He soon learned that Mr. Bonamy might not be a gentleman, and was indeed reputed to be a stubborn, queer-tempered curmudgeon; but he learned also that he had great influence in the town, though, except in the way of business, he associated with few, and that he, Reginald Lindo, would have to reckon with him on that footing. The certainty of this and of the bad beginning he had made naturally depressed the young man, his customary good opinion of himself not coming to his aid at once. And, besides, he carried about with him-sometimes it came between him and his book, sometimes he saw it framed by the autumn landscape-the picture of Kate's pure proud face. At such moments he felt himself humiliated by the slights cast upon her. The Hammonds did not think her fit company for them! The Hammonds!
Not that he knew the Hammonds yet, or many others, the days which intervened between his induction and the dinner at the Town House being somewhat lonely days, during which he was much thrown back upon himself, and only felt by slow degrees the soothing influence of the routine work of his position. Of his curate, and of him only, he naturally saw much, and found it small comfort to learn from the Reverend Stephen that the fracas with Mr. Bonamy had not escaped the attention of the town, but was being made the subject of comment by many who were delighted to have so novel a subject as the new rector and his probable conduct.
He was sitting at breakfast a few days later-on the morning of the Hammonds' party-when Mrs. Baker announced an early visitor. "No, he is not a gentleman, sir," she said, "though he has on a black coat. A stranger to the town, I think, but he will not say what he wants, except to see you."
"I will come to him in the study," replied her master.
The housekeeper, however, going out, and taking a second glance at the caller, did not show him into the study, but instead, gave him a seat in the hall on the farther side from the coatstand. There the rector, when he came out, found him-a pale fat-faced man, dressed neatly and decorously, though his clothes were threadbare. He took him into the study, and asked him his business. "But first sit down," the rector added pleasantly, desiring to set the man at his ease.
The stranger sat down gingerly on the edge of a chair. For a moment there was a pause of seeming embarrassment, and then, "I am body-servant, sir," he said abruptly, passing his tongue across his lips, and looking up furtively to learn the effect of his announcement, "to the Earl of Dynmore."
"Indeed!" the rector replied, with a slight start. "Has Lord Dynmore returned to England, then?"
Again the man looked up slyly. "No, sir," he answered with deliberation, "I cannot say that he has, sir."
"You have brought some letter or message from him, perhaps?" the clergyman hazarded. The stranger seemed to have a difficulty in telling his own story.
"No, sir, if you will pardon me, I have come about myself, sir," the man explained, speaking a little more freely. "I am in a little bit of trouble, and I think you would help me, sir, if you heard the story."
"I am quite willing to hear the story," said the rector gravely. Looking more closely at the man, he saw that his neatness was only on the surface. His white cravat was creased, and his wrists displayed no linen. An air of seediness marked him in the full light of the windows, and, pale as his face was, it wore here and there a delicate flush. Perhaps the man's admission that he was in trouble helped the rector to see this.
"Well, sir, it was this way," the servant began. "I was not very well out there, sir, and his lordship-he is an independent kind of man-thought he would be better by himself. So he gave me my passage-money and board wages for three months, and told me to come home and take a holiday until he returned to England. So far it was all right, sir."
"Yes?" said the rector.
"But on board the boat-I am not excusing what I did, sir; but there are others have done worse," continued the man, with another of his sudden upward glances-"I was led to play cards with a set of sharpers, and-and the end of it was that I landed at Liverpool yesterday without a halfpenny."
"That was bad."
"Yes, it was, sir. I do not know that I ever felt so bad in my life," replied the servant earnestly. "And now you know my position, sir. There are several people in the town-but they have no means to help me-who can tell you I am his lordship's valet, and my name Charles Felton."
"You want help, I suppose?"
"I have not a halfpenny, sir! I want something to live on until his lordship comes back."
His tone changed as he said this, growing hard and almost defiant. The rector noted the alteration, and did not like it. "But why come to me?" he said, more coldly than he had yet spoken. "Why do you not go to Lord Dynmore's steward, or agent, or his solicitor, my man?"
"They would tell of me," was the curt answer. "And likely enough I should lose my place."
"Still, why come to me?" Lindo persisted-chiefly to learn what was in the man's mind, for he had already determined what he would do.
"Because
