“So you have sent your friend to insult me; now!”

Robin started.  The voice was quiet enough, but full of a suppressed force.

“I have not, sir.  I met Mr. Babington at Froggatt on his way back.  He told me.  I am very sorry for it.”

“And you talked with him at Padley, too, no doubt?”

“Yes, sir.”

His father suddenly wheeled round on him.

“Do you think I have no sense, then?  Do you think I do not know what you and your friends speak of?”

Robin was silent.

He was astonished how little afraid he was.  His heart beat loud enough in his ears; yet he felt none of that helplessness that had fallen on him before when his father was angry....  Certainly he had added to his stature in the parlour at Froggatt.

The old man poured out a glass of wine and drank it.  His face was flushed high, and he was using more words than usual.

“Well, sir, there are other affairs we must speak of; and then no more of them.  I wish to know your meaning for the time to come.  There must be no more fooling this way and that.  I shall pay no fines for you—­mark that!  If you must stand on your own feet, stand on them....  Now then!”

“Do you mean, am I coming to church with you, sir?”

“I mean, who is to pay your fines?...  Miss Marjorie?”

Robin set his teeth at the sneer.

“I have not yet been fined, sir.”

“Now do you take me for a fool?  D’you think they’ll let you off?  I was speaking—­”

The old man stopped.

“Yes, sir?”

The other wheeled his face on him.

“If you will have it,” he said, “I was speaking to my two good friends who dined here on Sunday.  I was plain with them and they were plain with me.  ‘I shall not pay for my brat of a son,’ I said.  ’Then he must pay for himself,’ said they, ‘unless we lay him by the heels.’  ’Not in my house, I hope,’ I said; and they laughed at that.  We were very merry together.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Good God! have I a fool for a son?  I ask you again, Who is it to pay?”

“When will they demand it?”

“Why, they may demand it next week, if they will!  You were not at church on Sunday!”

“I was not in Matstead,” said the lad.

“But—­”

“And Mr. Barton will not, I think—­”

The old man struck the table suddenly and violently.

“I have dropped words enough,” he cried.  “Where’s the use of it?  If you think they will let you alone, I tell you they will not.  There are to be doings before Christmas, at latest; and what then?”