It is always more difficult for people who live in such houses as these to behave well under adverse fortune than for those who live in houses where the Irish stew can be smelled at eleven o’clock in the morning, and where the doors do not shut properly, and the kitchen range goes wrong.  Possibly something of this fact helped to explain the owner’s extreme violence of temper on the occasion of his son’s revolt.  It was intolerable for a man all of whose other surroundings moved like clockwork, obedient to his whims, to be disobeyed flatly by one whose obedience should be his first duty—­to find disorder and rebellion in the very mainspring of the whole machine.

Possibly, too, the little scheme that was maturing in Lord Talgarth’s mind between tea and dinner that evening helped to restore his geniality; for, as soon as the thought was conceived, it became obvious that it could be carried through with success.

He observed:  “Aha! it’s time, is it?” to his man in a hearty kind of way, and hoisted himself out of his chair with unusual briskness.

(III)

He spent a long evening again in the library alone.  Archie was away; and after dining alone with all the usual state, the old man commanded that coffee should be brought after him.  The butler found him, five minutes later, kneeling before a tall case of drawers, trying various keys off his bunch, and when the man came to bring in whisky and clear away the coffee things he was in his deep chair, a table on either side of him piled with papers, and a drawer upon his knees.

“You can put this lot back,” he remarked to the young footman, indicating a little pile of four drawers on the hearth-rug.  He watched the man meditatively as he attempted to fit them into their places.

“Not that way, you fool!  Haven’t you got eyes?...  The top one at the top!”

But he said it without bitterness—­almost contemplatively.  And, as the butler glanced round a moment or two later to see that all was in order, he saw his master once more beginning to read papers.

“Good-night,” said Lord Talgarth.

“Good-night, my lord,” said the butler.

There was a good deal of discussion that night in the men’s wing as to the meaning of all this, and it was conducted with complete frankness.  Mr. Merton, the butler, had retired to his own house in the stable-yard, and Mr. Clarkson, the valet, was in his lordship’s dressing-room; so the men talked freely.  It was agreed that only two explanations were possible for the unusual sweetness of temper:  either Mr. Frank was to be reinstated, or his father was beginning to break up.  Frank was extremely popular with servants always; and it was generally hoped that the former explanation was the true one.  Possibly, however, both were required.

* * * * *