raise it to a woman, and after the odious accident he would feel as humiliated as a fox-terrier after a bath.  By the kind hazard of fate he had never once encountered his great-aunt in the street.  He was superb in enmity—­a true hero.  He would quarrel with a fellow and say, curtly, “I’ll never speak to you again”; and he never would speak to that fellow again.  Were the last trump to blow and all the British Isles to be submerged save the summit of Snowdon, and he and that fellow to find themselves alone and safe together on the peak, he could still be relied upon never to speak to that fellow again.  Thus would he prove that he was a man of his word and that there was no nonsense about him.

Strange though it may appear to the thoughtless, he was not disliked—­much less ostracised.  Codes differ.  He conformed to one which suited the instincts of some thirty thousand other adult males in the Five Towns.  Two strapping girls in the warehouse of his manufactory at Knype quarrelled over him in secret as the Prince Charming of those parts.  Yet he had never addressed them except to inform them that if they didn’t mind their p’s and q’s he would have them flung off the “bank” [manufactory].  Rachel herself had not yet begun to be prejudiced against him.

This monster of irascible cruelty regarded himself as a middle-aged person.  But he was only twenty-five that day, and he did not look more, either, despite a stiff, strong moustache.  He too, like Louis and Rachel, had the gestures of youth—­the unconsidered, lithe movements of limb, the wistful, unteachable pride of his age, the touching self-confidence.  Old Mrs. Maldon was indeed old among them.

II

She sat down in all her benevolent stateliness and with a slightly irritating deliberation undid the parcel, displaying a flattish leather case about seven inches by four, which she handed formally to Julian Maldon, saying as she did so—­

“From your old auntie, my dear boy, with her loving wishes.  You have now lived just a quarter of a century.”

And as Julian, awkwardly grinning, fumbled with the spring-catch of the case, she was aware of having accomplished a great and noble act of surrender.  She hoped the best from it.  In particular, she hoped that she had saved the honour of her party and put it at last on a secure footing of urbane convivial success.  For that a party of hers should fail in giving pleasure to every member of it was a menace to her legitimate pride.  And so far fate had not been propitious.  The money in the house had been, and was, on her mind.  Then the lateness of the guests had disturbed her.  And then Julian had aggrieved her by a piece of obstinacy very like himself.  Arriving straight from a train journey, he had wanted to wash.  But he would not go to the specially prepared bedroom, where a perfect apparatus awaited him.  No, he must needs take off his jacket in the back room and roll up his sleeves and stamp into the scullery and there splash and rub like a stableman, and wipe himself on the common rough roller-towel.  He said he preferred the “sink.” (Offensive word!  He would not even say “slop-stone,” which was the proper word.  He said “sink,” and again “sink.”)