of triumph: "Remember, if anything were to happen to your dear father you
would have to shift for yourself, for everything has been left to me."

Mrs. Thresk meant no harm. She was utterly without imagination and had no
special delicacy of taste to supply its place--that was all. People and
words--she was at pains to interpret neither the one nor the other and
she used both at random. She no more contemplated anything happening to
her husband, to quote her phrase, than she understood the effect her
barbarous little speech would have on a rather reserved schoolboy.

Nor did Henry himself help to enlighten her. He was shrewd enough to
recognise the futility of any attempt. No! He just looked at her
curiously and held his tongue. But the words were not forgotten. They
roused in him a sense of injustice. For in the ordinary well-to-do
circle, in which the Thresks lived, boys were expected to be an expense
to their parents; and after all, as he argued, he had not asked to be
born. And so after much brooding, there sprang up in him an antagonism to
his family and a fierce determination to owe to it as little as he could.

There was a full share of vanity no doubt in the boy's resolve, but the
antagonism had struck roots deeper than his vanity; and at an age when
other lads were vaguely dreaming themselves into Admirals and
Field-Marshals and Prime-Ministers Henry Thresk, content with lower
ground, was mapping out the stages of a good but perfectly feasible
career. When he reached the age of thirty he must be beginning to make
money; at thirty-five he must be on the way to distinction--his name must
be known beyond the immediate circle of his profession; at forty-five he
must be holding public office. Nor was his profession in any doubt. There
was but one which offered these rewards to a man starting in life without
money to put down--the Bar.