like a lot of children, because he tells us to do so," murmured Fayre-Michell.
"I don't want to go. I only want distraction. In fact, I don't think I shall go," added Mr. Handford. But a woman urged him to do so.
"Sir Walter would like it," she said.
"It's all very sad and very exasperating indeed," declared the Yorkshireman; "and it shows, if that wanted showing, that there's far, far less consideration among young men for their elders than there used to be in my young days. If my father-in-law had told me not to do a thing, the very wish to do it would have disappeared at once."
"Sir Walter was as clear as need be," added Felix. "We all heard him. Then the young fool—Heaven forgive him—behind everybody's back goes and plays with fire in this insane way."
"The selfishness! Just look at the inconvenience—the upset—the suffering to his relations and the worry for all of us. All our plans must be altered—everything upset, life for the moment turned upside down—a woman's heart broken very likely—and all for a piece of disobedient folly. Such things make one out of tune with Providence. They oughtn't to happen. They don't happen in Yorkshire. Devonshire appears to be a slacker's county. It's the air, I shouldn't wonder."
"Education, and law and order, and the discipline inculcated in the Navy ought to have prevented this," continued Fayre-Michell. "Who
