see that Andover is dead, father,” said Lionel, to change the conversation.
“I look upon it as an uncommon happy release.”
“I wonder if they really will offer you the bishopric?”
“My dear boy, that is not a subject upon which I allow my thoughts to dwell. I will not conceal from you that, as the youngest surviving son of the late Lord Chancellor, I think I have some claims upon my country. And I have duties towards it as well, so that if the bishopric is offered to me I shall not hesitate to accept. You remember St. Paul’s words to Timothy? This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop he desireth a good work. But in these matters there is so much ignoble wire-pulling, so much backstairs influence to which my character is not suited and to which I could not bring myself to descend.”
Presently, however, when Canon Spratte strolled along Piccadilly on the way to his club, it occurred to him that the day before he had given his tailor an order for two pairs of trousers. His circumstances had taught him neither to spend money recklessly, nor to despise a certain well-bred economy; and it was by no means impossible that he would have no use for those particular articles of clothing. He walked up Savile Row.
“Mr. Marsden, will you inquire whether those garments I ordered yesterday have been cut yet?”
The tailor passed the question down his speaking-tube.
“No, sir,” he said. “Not yet.”
“Then will you delay them till further notice?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Canon Spratte was going out of the shop when he noticed on a fashion plate the costume of a bishop.
“Ah, do you make gaiters, Mr. Marsden?” said he, stopping.
“Yes, sir.”
“They’re very difficult things to cut. So many of my friends wear very ill-fitting gaiters. Fine day, isn’t it? Good-morning.”
III
When Canon Spratte reached the Athenæum he found a note waiting for him.
My Dear Canon,
I should very much like to have a little talk with you. I find it difficult to say in so many words upon what topic, but perhaps you will guess. I think it better to see you before I do anything further, and therefore should be grateful if you could give me five minutes as soon as possible.
Yours ever faithfully, Wroxham.
He read it, and a smile of self-satisfaction played quickly on his lips. He divined at once that the writer wished to ask Winnie to marry him.
“I foresaw it when the boy was fourteen,” he exclaimed.
His own wife had died ten years before. She was a pale, mild creature, and had been somewhat overwhelmed by her husband’s greatness. When he was still a curate, handsome and debonair, the Canon had fallen in love with the youngest daughter of Lord Frampstone. It was an alliance, (Theodore Spratte would never have condescended to a marriage,) of which the Chancellor thoroughly approved; and the girl, dazzled by her suitor’s courtly brilliance, had succumbed at once to his fascinations. She remained dazzled to the end of her life. He never unbent. He treated her always as though she were a congregation. Even in the privacies of domestic life he was talking to a multitude; and his wife, if sometimes she wished he would descend to her level and vouchsafe to be familiar, never ceased blindly to admire him. She sighed for a little simple love, but the Canon could not forget that he was a son of a great Lord Chancellor and she the daughter of a noble house. She was confused by his oratorical outbursts, his wit, his grandiose ways; and gradually, unnoticed in the white brilliance of her husband’s glory, she vanished out of existence. The Canon’s only complaint was that his wife had never lived up to the position which was hers by right. She cared nothing for social success, and was happiest in the bosom of her family.
“Upon my word, my dear, you might as well be the wife of a dissenting minister,” he exclaimed often.
But her death gave him an opportunity to prove his own regard and to make up for her previous shortcomings. He ordered a funeral of the utmost magnificence; and the gentle lady, who had longed only for peace, was buried with as great parade as if she had been a princess of the blood. On a large brass tablet, emblazoned with his own arms and with those of her family, the lamenting husband, who prided himself not a little on his skilful Latinity, placed a Ciceronian epitaph which caused amazement and admiration in all beholders.
The recollection of his wife flashed at this moment through the Canon’s mind, and putting his own sentiments into her meek breast, he flourished the letter and chuckled to himself.
“I wish she were alive to see this day.”
Lord Wroxham, left fatherless in early boyhood, was head of a family than which there was none in England more ancient and more distinguished. Canon Spratte called a servant.
“Will you ask the porter if Lord Wroxham is in the club?”
“Yes, sir. I saw him come in half-an-hour ago.”
“Ha!”
Canon Spratte put a cigarette between his lips and jauntily went to the smoking-room. He caught sight at once of his prospective son-in-law, but made no sign that he observed him. He strolled across the room.
“Canon Spratte!” said the young man, rising and turning very red.
“Ah, my dear boy,” said the Canon, cordially holding out his hand. “Are you here? I’m delighted to see you. I was just going to write you a note.”
Wroxham was a young man of five-and-twenty, slender and of moderate height, with short crisp hair and a small moustache. His eyes were prominent and short-sighted, and he wore gold-rimmed pince-nez. His appearance was a little insignificant, but his pleasant, earnest face, if not handsome, was very kindly. He was nervous, and had evidently no great facility in expressing himself.
Canon Spratte, aware of his confusion, took his arm and led him to a more secluded place.
“Come and sit in the window, dear boy, and tell me what it is you wish to say.”
When the Canon desired to be charming, none could excel him. There was such a sympathetic warmth in his manner that, if you were not irritated by a slightly patronizing air, your heart never failed to go out to him.
“Have a cigarette,” he said, producing a golden case of considerable value. “Give me a match, there’s a good fellow.”
He beamed on the youth, but still Wroxham hesitated.
“You got my note, Canon?”
“Yes, yes. So charming of you to write to me. I’ve known you so long, dear boy—if there’s anything I can do for you, command me.”
Wroxham had often come with Lionel from Eton to spend part of his holidays
