“Can’t make out why you ever consented to marry such a chap at all!” he growled presently.

“Oh, well—­” said Jenny.

(III)

It was a delicious evening, and the three men, after dinner, strolled out on to the broad terrace that ran, looking over the lake, straight up and down the long side of the house.  They had not had the advantage, since the servants were in the room, of talking over the situation as they wished, and there was no knowing when Lord Talgarth and Jenny might emerge.  So they sat down at a little stone table at the end furthest from the smoking-room, and Archie and Dick lit their cigarettes.

There is not a great deal to say about the Rector.  The most effective fact about him was that he was the father of Jenny.  It was a case, here, of “Averill following Averill”:  his father and grandfather, both second sons, as was the Rector himself, had held the living before him, and had performed the duties of it in the traditional and perfectly respectable way.  This one was a quiet middle-aged man, clean-shaven except for two small whiskers.  He wore a white tie, and a small gold stud was visible in the long slit of his white shirt-front.  He was on very easy terms in this house, in an unintimate manner, and dined here once a fortnight or so, without saying or hearing anything of particular interest.  He had been secretly delighted at his daughter’s engagement, and had given his consent with gentle and reserved cordiality.  He was a Tory, not exactly by choice, but simply—­for the same reason as he was Church of England—­because he was unable, in the fiber of him, to imagine anything else.  Of course, Lord Talgarth was the principal personage in his world, simply because he was Lord Talgarth and owned practically the whole parish and two-thirds of the next.  He regarded his daughter with the greatest respect, and left in her hands everything that he decently could.  And, to do her justice, Jenny was a very benevolent, as well as capable, despot.  In short, the Rector plays no great part in this drama beyond that of a discreet, and mostly silent, Greek chorus of unimpeachable character.  He disapproved deeply, of course, of Frank’s change of religion—­but he disapproved with that same part of him that appreciated Lord Talgarth.  It seemed to him that Catholicism, in his daughter’s future husband, was a defect of the same kind as would be a wooden leg or an unpleasant habit of sniffing—­a drawback, yet not insuperable.  He would be considerably relieved if it could be cured.

* * * * *

The three men sat there for some while without interruption from the smoking-room, while the evening breeze died, the rosy sky paled, and the stars came out one by one, like diamonds in the clear blue.  They said, of course, all the proper things, and Dick heard a little more than he had previously known.