He got up from the table and put his arm round her shoulder, leading her up to the hearth. "You and I will see each other," he said kindly. "It isn't the end of everything between us, mother. But with him, and with Kencote, it is. There's no help for it. He's definitely against me now. He's told me he's going to put Humphrey in my place—straight out. I can't stand that, you know. If he's going to say things like that—and do them—what's the good of my staying here?"
"He can't mean it," she pleaded. "He is pleased with Humphrey now, but he has always loved you best of all his sons. It isn't in his power to put any one in your place."
"I dare say he'll be sorry for having done it," he said, "but he's going to do it, all the same. I can put up with the idea, mother, as long as I'm not at Kencote, but it's a bit too much to stay here and have that sort of thing said to you."
He dropped his arm and turned round sharply, for the door had opened again, and now it was his father who came into the room.
"Dick," he said, shutting the door and coming forward, "I said too much just now. For God's sake forget it!"
There was a moment's pause. Then Dick said in a hard voice, "What am I to forget?"
The Squire looked at him with his troubled, perplexed frown. "Can't you give it up, my boy?" he asked.
Dick turned away with an impatient shrug of the shoulders.
"God knows I don't want to make any changes," said his father. "It's worse for me than it is for you, Dick. Humphrey won't be to me what you have been. If you would only meet me half-way, I——"
Dick turned suddenly. "Yes, I'll meet you half-way," he said. "It is what I came here to say I would do, only you went so far beyond everything that there was nothing left for me to say. If you are going to set yourself to make Humphrey a richer man than I, as you said—well, that is beyond anything I had thought of—that you should be thinking of it in that way, I mean."