'Yes, sir. Lancelot. I could release him from the retail business and make over the Pursuivant to him. He would have rather more than £500 a year, and if—'
'Lance!' again exclaimed the doctor. 'So it is Lance! I beg your pardon, I had been hoping it was yourself.'
'You will hardly hope that long, sir.'
'What do you mean? That hurt? What has been——'
'That will wait. Do not let me lose this opportunity,' said Felix, rather breathlessly. 'It is not only my health. For all essentials, whatever you are kind enough to think of me, Lance is that and a great deal more, and he is deeply smitten, poor fellow, and needs affection and happiness so much,' he continued, a little hurt at the smile that played on the doctor's features, and broadened into a laugh.
'Well, I've no right to complain after setting the lad on.'
'You, sir?'
'Ay. When he was brooding and moping in the winter, fancying no girl would look at him, I told him, by way of shaking him up, that I should be ashamed of one who stuck at his occupation. It is like giving a boy a gun, and wondering when he brings down your tame jackdaw. One ought to have experience by the time it comes to one's youngest, but I suppose I should never get it if I were the father of the fifty Danaides.'
'May I gather that you would not think the disadvantages insurmountable? I know it does not sound well, but Lance is in a better position than mine was. He is a good deal thought of in the town; is intimate at the Rectory; and if he lived in the country, and dropped the retail, I can answer for it that there would be plenty of society such as your daughter would care to have. If I foresaw mortification, it would not be right to expose her to it.'
'Somehow my girls care rather too little than too much about society,' said the doctor. 'I shall be the sufferer. How I shall catch it from Tom and the rest!'