"Sometimes my point of view changes. I look at myself, and what do I see? An elderly, shabby-genteel inhabitant of Bloomsbury, with not a single memory of the past to fall back on, save that of a youth utterly wasted--a youth hung about with golden opportunities, each and all successively disregarded from a fatuous, childish belief that the supply was inexhaustible--and with nothing to look forward to but a further period of dependence upon a wife who is as much my moral superior as she is my social inferior. An earner of casual guineas--a picker-up of stray newspapers--the recipient of refreshment respectfully proffered by unintellectual but infinitely more worthy associates in bar parlours. A loafer--a waster--a failure! That, Mr. Mainwaring, is the father of the girl whom you desire to marry.... I am not what you would call religious, but sometimes the impulse comes upon me--and I obey it forthwith--to go down upon my knees and thank God from the bottom of my heart that my children take after their mother."
The broken scholar dropped wearily into his chair.
"Youth! Youth! Youth! Youth!" he murmured. "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth!"
His head slipped down between his hands.
Dicky, curiously stirred, attempted to say some word, but nothing came.
Suddenly Mr. Welwyn sprang to his feet. The cloud had lifted, or else pride had come to the rescue. It is often difficult to tell which.
"Dick," he said, "I perceive from your attitude that you are about to be sympathetic. Don't! Sympathy is wasted on me. In five minutes from now this mood will have passed. In half an hour I shall be as happy as an ostrich with its head in the sand. That has been my lifelong posture, and a very comfortable posture, too, once you get used to it! It is only when one comes up to breathe that things hurt a bit. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go out. I have had a letter this morning offering me some exceedingly welcome and possibly permanent work. I do not know where Tilly is, but she should be in presently. I do not ask what your business with her may be. I have no right--and no need."
The two men shook hands.
"Good-bye, dear Dick," said Mr. Welwyn, "and thank you for the very unobtrusive manner in which you have helped a lame dog over a stile."
Next moment the door closed, and he was gone.