"Gracious! You don't say so!"
Mrs. Lashmar put the subject disdainfully aside, and Dyce was glad to speak of something else.
Throughout the day, the vicar was too busy to hold conversation with his son. But after dinner they sat alone together in the study, Mrs. Lashmar being called forth by some parochial duty. As he puffed at his newly-lighted pipe, Dyce reflected on all that had happened since he last sat here, some three months ago, and thought of what might have been his lot had not fortune dealt so kindly with him. Glancing at his father's face, he noted in it the signs of wearing anxiety; it seemed to him that the vicar looked much older than in the spring, and he was impressed by the pathos of age, which has no hopes to nourish, which can ask no more of life than a quiet ending. He could not imagine himself grey-headed, disillusioned; the effort to do so gave him a thrill of horror. Thereupon he felt reproach of conscience. For all the care and kindness he had received from his father, since the days when he used to come into this very room to show how well he could read a page of some child's story, what return had he made? None whatever in words, and little enough in conduct. All at once, he felt a desire to prove that he was not the insensible egoist his father perhaps thought him.
"I'm afraid you're a good deal worried, father," he began, looking at the paper-covered writing-table.
"I'm putting my affairs in order, Dyce," the vicar replied, running fingers through his beard. "I've been foolish enough to let them get very tangled; let me advise you never to do the same. But it'll all be straight before long. Don't trouble about me; let me hear of your own projects. I heartily wish it were in my power to help you."
"You did that much longer than I ought to have allowed," returned Dyce. "I feel myself to a great extent the cause of your troubles—"
"Nothing of the kind," broke in his father, cheerily. "Troubles be—excommunicated! This hot weather takes it out of me a little, but I'm very well and not at all discouraged; so don't think it. To tell you the truth, I've been feeling anxious to hear more in detail from you about this Hollingford enterprise. Have you serious hopes?"
"I hardly think I shall be elected the first time," Dyce answered, speaking with entire frankness. "But it'll be experience, and may open the way for me."
"Parliament," mused the vicar, "Parliament! To be sure, we must have Members; it's our way of doing things, of governing the country. And if you really feel apt for that—"
He paused dreamily. Dyce, still under the impulse of softened feelings, spoke as he seldom did, very simply, quietly, sincerely.