“Ah, I was half expecting you yesterday,” said the rector, as they shook hands. “But come into the study. There we shan’t be disturbed.”
“And I fully intended to have returned yesterday,” replied Roland, when they were seated. “But the fact is, my father didn’t get back till late, and I had no opportunity of speaking to him until this morning.”
“Yes. And—”
“The result was precisely what I expected. He was utterly unreasonable and impracticable. In short, Dr Ingelow, I don’t see how I can avoid explaining that he has a violent prejudice against you and yours. That may have had a great deal to do with it, but he had reasons of his own, which, as they concern others, I am hardly at liberty to mention. Anyhow, I could not for a moment think of falling in with his views, and the result was a regular row.”
“Do you mean that you quarrelled?” asked the rector.
“If a tolerably brisk interchange of compliments, and a mutual agreement to keep carefully out of each other’s way for the rest of our mutual lives constitute a quarrel—and I rather think they do—why, then I must admit we did,” was the grim reply, and his face grew dark over the recollection thus revived.
“Excuse me, Dorrien—you see I always consider myself to a certain extent privileged—but I can see at a glance that you’re a quick-tempered man. Now, isn’t it just possible that you were rather hasty?” said the rector, in his kindest manner, bending a searching glance upon the young man. “I mean,” he went on in response to a decided shake of the head, “you may have forgotten that, however harsh—even unjust, as you think—your father may be, you still owe him a certain amount of respect—of duty. Nothing can get rid of that fact.”
Roland looked up quickly.
“Duty?” he echoed, with an intensity of bitterness which was not lost upon the other. “Duty! My dear sir, I can assure you that that very word formed subject matter for a pretty lively discussion between us, ending as I have described. However, to drop these wretched family details, which must be most tedious to you, you see now I have done my best to meet your wishes, and if I have failed it has been through no fault of my own—that I can say with a perfectly clear conscience.” He spoke with a suppressed eagerness which had been absent from his speech in their first interview. Then the last thing he had anticipated was failure in this quarter; now it was different.
The rector shook his head deprecatorily.