Harvey Rolfe glowed with a sense of his own generous wisdom.  He had never felt so keen a self-approval.  Indeed, that emotion seldom came to solace him; for the most part he was the severest critic of his own doings and sayings.  But for once it appeared to him that he uttered golden words, the ripe fruit of experience and reflection.  That personal unrest had anything to do with the counsel he offered to his wife, he did not for the moment even suspect.  Alma had touched him with her unfamiliar note of simple womanhood, and all at once there was revealed to him a peril of selfishness, from which he strongly recoiled.  He seemed to be much older, and Alma much more youthful, than he was wont to perceive.  Very gently and sweetly she had put him in mind of this fact; it behoved him to consider it well, and act upon the outcome of such reflection.  Heavens! was he in danger of becoming the typical husband —­ the man who, as he had put it, thinks first of his pipe and slippers?  From the outside, no man would more quickly or more contemptuously have noted the common-sense moral of this present situation.  Being immediately concerned, he could see nothing in his attitude but a wise and noble disinterestedness.  And thus, at a moment when he wittingly held the future in his hands, he prided himself on leaving to Alma an entire responsibility —­ making her, in the ordinary phrase, mistress of her own fate, and waiting upon her decisions.

‘I will think a little longer,’ said Alma, sighing contentedly, ’and then we’ll talk about it again.  It’s quite true I was getting a little run down, and perhaps —­ but we’ll talk about it in a day or two.’

’Could we decide anything for the present?  Would you care to go and meet the steamer at Plymouth?’

’And take Hughie?  Suppose I wrote very nicely to Mamma, and asked if we might leave Hughie with her, in Hampshire, for a few days?  I dare say she would be delighted, and the other people too.  The nurse could be with him, I dare say.  We could call there on our way.  And Ruth would look after the house very well.’

‘Write and ask.’

‘Then you and I’ —­ Alma began to talk joyously —­ ’might ramble about Devonshire till the ship comes.  Let me see —­ if we travelled on Monday, that would give us several days, wouldn’t it?  And the Carnabys might either land at Plymouth, or we go on with them in the ship to London.  That’s a very good plan.  But why lose time by writing?  Send a telegram to Mamma —­ “Could we leave Hughie and nurse with you for a day or two?"’

Harvey again turned his steps to the post-office, and this message was despatched.  A few hours elapsed before the reply came, but it was favourable.

‘Then we’ll leave on Monday!’ exclaimed Alma, whose convalescence was visibly proceeding.  ’Just send another telegram —­ a word or two, that they may be ready.’

‘Might as well have mentioned the day in the other,’ said Harvey, though glad to have something more to do.