called again, feeling a strange longing to say
something on Roger le Garçon, but was not
admitted. Yet he had seen the young girl in
the garden that morning. He was furious. It
was all that low engine-driver, stoker, ploughman,
anything, her father. That poor soft girl
was tyrannised over, and could not resist.
However, now he had a fair excuse for "cutting the
whole concern—toute la boutique." The course
on Roger le Garçon was suspended, and the
lecturer himself "interdicted," like M. Renan.
He had a little mental slate, and he wiped their
names off with his sleeve.

Fermor had, indeed, laid out for himself the
pleasant pastime of "forming Violet's mind."
With this view he used to converse with her a
good deal upon the phenomenon of his own
mind. On this department of psychology he was
very fluent. Violet, in a devotee attitude, with
her soft eyes fixed on her master, tried hard to
follow, and, curious to say, her lecturer seemed
better pleased when he could not be followed
than when he was suddenly halted and gently
asked to explain. He did not, however, include
the rest of the family in his lectures.

From the very first day after Major Carter's
party, he had suddenly drawn the line, as he
called it, erected strong barriers between the
rest of the family and himself. "Though I take
the daughter," he said, "I do not, on that
account, marry the whole family. She is absorbed
into ours. I don't want her to bring them with
her. No! No!" And to her he said privately,
"My dear Violet, you are charming, as of
course, and what I think of you I have shown.
But I must really protest against your
relations—that is, against taking them en masse. It
may be very well now, but I do sincerely hope
they may be got to understand the footing we
wish to have them on. Now I must say, coming
home the other day and finding them all in a
carriage at the door, and your brother in the
hall—"

"Indeed," interrupted Violet, piteously (she
someway never could gain courage to call him
Charles, and therefore never called him by any
name), "indeed they meant it well, and Pauline
and Louis were against it, but mamma said you
would think it so rude if they did not call on
you."

"And why," said Fermor, with a curious want
of logic, "should they be so violently against
so common an act of courtesy? To tell you the
truth, my dear Violet, I don't like your brother,
and you mustn't be angry with me for telling
you."

"O no, no," said Violet.

"I can't help it, and I can't give a distinct
reason for it, no more than I can for not liking
cucumbers or beef, or any other of the strong
things. He is the cucumber of your family,"
he added, smiling, and wishing to reward her
attention by the present of a little jest.

She laughed and enjoyed it as she enjoyed
everything he meant to be enjoyed.

"Now," said he, "suppose we go back to
lessons."

That is to the personal psychology, and to the
psychology they returned. He turned on a little
jet, and the personal experiences began to flow
on steadily.

"Many people say I have a cold manner, and
further think, because I have a cold manner, I
must be cold. Does it follow? The fact is, I
don't care to be enthusiastic, at least not about
everything. It's not my nature, and yet—perhaps
it is. Perhaps I feel that if I were to give way
to it I would become all enthusiasm, and froth
away like a bottle of champagne left open
accidentally. Now, what would you say?"

A dreadfully embarrassing question for the
shy little witness under examination. And,
indeed, any expert even would have found it
hard to have extracted any plain positive theory
out of Captain Fermor's contradictory speculation.
Most likely he did not wish her, for he
shook his head over her, smiling.

"No, no," he said. "It is not every one
that can understand me. I am like a Chaldee
manuscript. It would take years of patient labour
to find the key." And so, with a hailstorm of
"I, I, I," the personal narrative flowed on for
twenty minutes more. Violet listened with
soft and dilated eyes, trying hard to keep up
with his broader stride, and, to say the truth,
was a little fatigued. But all this while her
mind was being "formed."

Young Brett, that good boy, had been in and
out with him all through, the most faithful of
faithful terriers. Fermor really began to like
him, and once or twice shifted a dreadfully
sarcastic "snub" on to the head of his own man.
With a little adaptation it did just as well.
Young Brett had been up and down to Town
with mystery and meaning, and finally burst
upon Fermor with a superb fire-arm, breech-loading,
silver mounted, with needle and the rest of
it, reposing, too, in a luxurious couch of green
velvet, where it would be exceedingly warm
during the winter nights. Poor child, he had
the Indian notion about a weapon of this sort,
and would have given all the skins, furs, and
cowries he was worth for a rifle, and powder and
shot, considering that human happiness, riches,
comfort, and amusement, lay packed in a
gun-case.

Fermor received this marriage offering in a
very kindly manner, turning it over graciously,
and, after a short inspection, ringing for his
man to take it away into his bedroom. This was
much from him. For presents were one of his
grievances.

"People encumber you with them," he said;
and one of his comic pocket definitions, which he
often took out and handed round the company,
was that of a Present. "Something you do not
want, to be repaid by something you cannot
afford. That is my idea," he said.

He took little Brett with him, as it were upon
his staff, to see the Manuels pretty often, and
sent that honest boy to them as often, when
he was not in the vein to go himself. The
family liked the sight of his white hair and his
free speech. He secretly admired both, more