"I suppose you know where Bergen is?" added Lord Tarrington. "A little bit near the North Pole—or is it North Cape? I always mix the two. But it's in Norway, very bracing climate, awfully good sea-fishing, and £350 a year. Or if you prefer heat, there's Baranquilla, northern South America, not a good climate, but the last man stood it for two years before he succumbed to yellow fever ... and it's £550 a year and two years count for three in service. Which is it to be? Make up your mind soon, 'cos lots of fellows are on the waiting list—snap at either."
Tarrington's tone, for all its bluff good nature sounded final. Roger seeing his dreams of an African empire fade in that dingy room, all its tones having sombred with twenty years' fog and smoke into shades of yellow white and yellow brown, felt at first inclined to refuse haughtily either consolation for the loss of Zangia. But a married man and prospective father with very slight resources cannot permit himself the luxury of ill-temper. So he replied civilly that he would think if over and let Lord Tarrington know.
As he left the first floor of the building he crossed the path of the august Secretary of State himself walking probably round the quadrangle to the India Office. There was no look of recognition in his deep-set eyes. How different from two and a half years ago when he had been hailed by this statesman as an authority on East Africa far better worth listening to than Mr. Bennet Molyneux, now noting down complacently in his room below the fact that the Consulate at Zangia with its seven hundred pounds a year was to be offered to the acting man, Mr. Spencer Bazzard.
Brentham went down that evening—pretending he didn't care in the least for this definite set-back—to Reading, and, chartering a fly, drove out to Engledene. A rather late little dinner with Sibyl and Aunt Christabel was followed by a long consultation with Sibyl in the Library.
Lady Silchester's plans had long been ready, though she seemed to develop them as she spoke. "Become my agent, Rodge-podge, in place of old Parkins. He's an out-of-date duffer. I'll either pension him off, or better still send him to live on the Staffordshire property. He's let that go down very much; it ought to yield twice its present rents. I'll give you £700 a year, and there'll be all sorts of legitimate pickings as well. You can have the Lodge at Englefield to live in. I'll do it up for you. Lucy can live there and go on having babies for the next ten years. I'm sure I don't want to ask her to dinner or to anything else, if she doesn't want to come. She needn't curtsy to me if we meet, if it's that she dislikes....
"But you've great abilities, Roger. You've been shamefully treated by Lord W.... He's always tried to snub me ... I don't know why ... I'll tell you what. I'll run you. After all, I am a rich woman ... now. You shall get into Parliament ... and be a great Imperialist, as that seems to be going to become the fashion. What ... what ... WHAT a pity you married like that, all in a hurry! And you see it's done you no good with the Nonconformist conscience and those stuffy old things at the F.O. However, it's no good crying over spilt milk. I'll make a career for you!" And she looked at him with shining eyes, betraying her palpable secret....
"This is awfully good of you, Syb," said Roger, not meeting her look. "But do you think it is fair on others? Why not put in your father——? Or one of your brothers?"
"Rubbish! Dad would make just as great a mess of the Silchester estates—only on a far bigger scale—as he is doing over his three hundred acres at Aldermaston. I think we'll send him up to care-take at Glen Sporran and make him sell up the Aldermaston place. Helping him with loans is like pouring money into—what do you pour it into when it runs away? A sieve? And the two boys have both got jobs and are none too bright, at that. Besides, it's no fun working with brothers, and I'm going to throw myself heart and soul into the development of the Estate. It'll be ... it'll be ... what's two and a third from twenty-one? Well, at any rate, more than eighteen years before Clithy comes of age. In that time we'll have raised the annual value of the property to twice what it is now, and incidentally we'll have a glorious time, influencing people, don't you know, getting up a new opposition in Parliament, and making ourselves felt...."
"Well, in any case, it's awfully good of you ... awfully ... somehow I don't deserve it...."
"You don't, after the way you threw me over. But stick to me now, through thick and thin, and"—she was going to have added impulsively, "Oh, Roger, I do love you, I can't help it," and perhaps have flung herself on to a sofa with a burst of hysterical tears to salve all his scruples, but quickly thought better of this and added rather tamely, "And we'll make a great success of our partnership. And now we must go and play backgammon or bezique or something with Aunt Christabel, or she will come poking her nose in here to see what we're up to. How tiresome the old are! It's only on account of what the Queen would say that I keep her on here. She thinks you're 'dangerous' to my peace of mind, Roger. But if I had mother here instead she would be equally boring, and father can't bear to be separated from her, and the two of them would be unthinkable."