“Oh, I begin to understand. A solicitor’s office is not good enough for you?”
“I don’t say that; but I have taken a disgust—an unreasonable disgust, no doubt—to that branch of the law, and I am very sick of Dorchester.”
“So am I,” retorted Harrington, gazing vaguely at a pretty nursemaid. “We are agreed there at any rate. And you want to follow in Lord Cheriton’s track, and make a great name?”
“It is only one in a thousand who succeeds as James Dalbrook has succeeded; but if I go to the Bar you may be sure I shall do my best to get on; and I shall start with a pretty good knowledge of common law.”
“You want to be in London—you are pining for an æsthetic centre,” sighed Harrington.
“I don’t quite know what that is, but I should prefer London to Dorchester.”
“So should I—and you want me to take your place at the mill; to grind out my soul in the dull round that has sickened you.”
“The life has begun to pall upon me, but I think it ought to suit you,” answered Theodore, thoughtfully. “You are fonder of home—and of the sisters—than I am. You get on better with them.”
“You have been rather grumpy lately, I admit,” said Harrington.
“And you have let yourself cool upon your Divinity exam. You evidently don’t mean the Church?”