lordship no interest, which might serve a friend? Could he not
present Dyce to more influential people.

"I should be ashamed to hint that kind of thing to him," answered
Dyce. "Don't be so impatient, mother. If I am to do anything--in
your sense of the word the opportunity will come. If it doesn't,
well, fate has ordered it so."

"All I know is, Dyce, that you might be the coming man, and you're
content to be nobody at all."

Dyce laughed.

"The coming man! Well, perhaps, I _am_; who knows? At all events,
it's something to know that you believe in me. And it may be that
you are not the only one."

Later, Dyce and his father went into the study to smoke. The young
man brought with him a large paperbacked volume which he had taken
out of his travelling bag.

"Here's a book I'm reading. A few days ago I happened to be at
Williams & Norgates'. This caught my eyes, and a glance at a page or
two interested me so much that I bought it at once. It would please
you, father."

"I've no time for reading nowadays," sighed the vicar. "What is it?"

He took the volume, a philosophical work by a French writer, bearing
recent date. Mr. Lashmar listlessly turned a few pages, whilst Dyce