But there was one more emotion which had made its appearance entirely unexpectedly as soon as he had heard the news, that now, greatly to his surprise, was beginning to take a considerable place amongst the rest—­and this was an extraordinarily warm sense of affection towards Frank—­of all people.  It was composed partly of compassion, and partly of an inexplicable sort of respect for which he could perceive no reason.  It was curious, he thought later, why this one figure should have pushed its way to the front just now, when his uncle and Jenny and, secondarily, that Rector ("so visibly affected by the ceremony”) should have occupied all the field.  Frank had never meant very much to Dick; he had stood for the undignified and the boyish in the midst of those other stately elements of which Merefield, and, indeed, all truly admirable life, was composed.

Yet now this figure stood out before him with startling distinctness.

First there was the fact that both Frank and himself had suffered cruelly at the hands of the same woman, though Frank incomparably the more cruelly of the two.  Dick had the honesty to confess that Jenny had at least never actually broken faith with himself; but he had also the perspicuity to see that it came to very nearly the same thing.  He knew with the kind of certitude that neither needs nor appeals to evidence that Jenny would certainly have accepted him if it had not been that Lord Talgarth had already dawned on her horizon, and that she put him off for a while simply to see whether this elderly sun would rise yet higher in the heavens.  It was the same consideration, no doubt, that had caused her to throw Frank over a month or two earlier.  A Lord Talgarth in the bush was worth two cadets in the hand.  That was where her sensibleness had come in, and certainly it had served her well.

It was this community of injury, then, that primarily drew Dick’s attention to Frank; and, when once it lead been so drawn, it lingered on other points in his personality.  Artistic Stoicism is a very satisfying ideal so long as things go tolerably well.  It affords an excellent protection against such misfortunes as those of not being appreciated or of losing money or just missing a big position—­against all such ills as affect bodily or mental conveniences.  But when the heart is touched, Artistic Stoicism peels off like rusted armour.  Dick had seriously began to consider, during the last few days, whether the exact opposite of Artistic Stoicism (let us call it Natural Impulsiveness) is not almost as good an equipment.  He began to see something admirable in Frank’s attitude to life, and the more he regarded it the more admirable it seemed.

Frank, therefore, had begun to wear to him the appearance of something really moving and pathetic.  He had had a communication or two from Jack Kirkby that had given him a glimpse of what Frank was going through, and his own extremely artificial self was beginning to be affected by it.