"Well, I don't believe you would," said Guy. "How do you know I'm not a great man?"
His father laughed dryly.
"I don't know, my dear Guy, of course, and nothing would gratify me more than to find out that you were. But, at least, you'll allow me to observe that great men are generally remarkable for their modesty."
"Yes, after they've been accorded the homage of the world," Guy argued. "They can afford to be modest then. I fancy that most of them were self-confident in their youth. I hope they were, poor devils. It must have been miserable for most of them, if they weren't."
"However," said Mr. Hazlewood, "all these theories of juvenile grandeur, interesting though they may be, do not take us far along the road of practical politics. I'm to understand, am I, that you are quite determined to remain here?"
"For another year, at any rate," Guy said. "That is, until I have a volume of poems ready."
"And your engagement?" asked his father.
Guy smiled to himself. It was a minor triumph, but it was definitely a triumph to have made his father be the first to mention the subject that had stood at the back of their minds ever since they met on the Shipcot platform.
"Look here, before we discuss that I want you to see Pauline. I think you'll understand my point of view more clearly after you've seen her. Now wouldn't you like to take a stroll round Wychford? The architecture...."
Guy and his father wandered about until dusk, and in the evening after dinner they played piquet.