"Monnie has told me a good deal about him," said Sidney, with a wistful look in her eyes. "He is not a happy man, I am afraid; and yet, he deserves to be. I wish he were not going out to such desolation."
"It's time some right-minded man tackled that job," the Admiral said. "I happen to know a good bit about that place. We coasted round it once. There is only a handful of Europeans, and they say English lads sent out there either die in five years' time, or come back hopeless drunkards. They go to pieces; climate, isolation, and drink are too much for them. But they've had bad administrators; it's a blot on our Empire. Neville will remedy that."
"I wish he had never left the House," said Sidney warmly. "He will be wasted out there. We want strong men at home in the present state of affairs."
"We want them in all quarters of the globe," said the Admiral. And his daughter said no more.
Randolph did not go to bed very early that night; when he got back, he sat up with Monica over a little log fire, the first she had had; but the rain was heavy. And though she had no idea how much he had been exposed to it, she expected that he would have a wet walk home. She and he were very good friends, and she was genuinely sorry that he was leaving her the following day.
"You have done me a lot of good," she said to him. "I get into a rut of my own, and want to be shaken out of it. But dear though Aunt Dannie is, she is not a conversationalist, and we think so very differently that we agree to go our own ways. You make me see that my ways are not infallible; and your presence here has been good for Chuckles. Oh, Randolph, do you think I shall make a good man of him? I get so anxious. Sometimes I think I am too severe; sometimes overindulgent. And it is such a loss for a boy to have no father!"
"I don't know," said Randolph; "it rather depends on the father. I believe a woman is better at training than a man—up to a certain age. I know all the good that ever came to me was through my mother. I remember her teaching; it has stuck to me through life—at least, some of it has; I don't remember anything learnt from my father. He was indifferent to me, and died when I was ten. A woman lays a better foundation than a man."
Monica sighed. Sidney's words came to her: "Duty is a good foundation; but it is not the right one."
"I shall get Sidney to help me with him," she said. "She happens to have that happy knack of teaching without any effort. I get ponderous when I talk to him for his good. And he and I are both relieved when it is over. I wonder when you will come down here again?"
"Not for some years, I should say."