There he lingered, trying to talk, as if he wanted to say something that would not come out; and at last he was only driven from the field by the return of Edgar and the girls, who came in open-mouthed and eager out of the cold.
Edgar had had a great deal of fun with Mrs. Harewood, and had on his side fascinated all the family; so that Robina confided to Lance that she thought Grace Harewood ought to be warned, for Edgar went on with her like 'You know what.'
'Make yourself easy,' said Lance; 'Grace and Lucy know all about that better than any girl in Minsterham. What did old Bill say? and what anthem did you have?'
Felix and Geraldine spent the Evening Service hour in very different fashion from the morning; for Edgar was their companion, and took the opportunity of making the remonstrance he had threatened about Lance and his prospects. He had never been fine in Alda's way, and had not her feelings about losing caste; but whereas his politics were diametrically opposed to those of the Pursuivant, he thought Felix ranging himself, according to his essential Blunderbore nature, on the side of the old giants destined to destruction, and wasting talent and substance on a hopeless and thankless cause; but he knew his brother to be past remonstrance, and to be perfectly well aware that this was the losing side. Only Edgar entered a strong protest against Lance being, as he said, sacrificed just to make Wilmet's pot boil, and bolster up the old Pursuivant a little longer.
'You can't be more averse to it than I,' said Felix. 'If he could only go back to his work, he might yet get to the University.'
'Pshaw! that's not what I meant. He is not the stuff; you were the only one of us that had the making of a scholar. Now Lance has got just the taste and the talent that were baulked in my case by old Tom's sticking me down to hides and tallow, when I ought to have been cultivating them.'
'There's this difference,' said Geraldine; 'Cousin Thomas stuck you, but Lance sticks himself.'
'Under moral compulsion, eh?'
'The compulsion was on me,' said Felix. 'I was really afraid to deny him; the idleness, and the fretting over it, were doing his head so much harm.'
'That's all very well. No harm done; but to let him go on here in the stodge is a bit of short-sightedness I can't understand. He'll never be happy in it; and you'd better let him go before it is too late.'