 acknowledge what I can't understand.«
    »Then do try to understand, Buckland! - Have you ever put aside your
prejudice for a moment to inquire what our religion really means? Not once, I
think - at all events, not since you reached years of discretion.«
    »Allow me to inform yon that I studied the question thoroughly at
Cambridge.«
    »Yes, yes; but that was in your boyhood.«
    »And when does manhood begin?«
    »At different times in different persons. In your case it was late.«
    Buckland laughed. He was considering a rejoinder, when they were interrupted
by the appearance of Fanny, who asked at once:
    »Shall you go to see Mr. Peak this evening, Buckland?«
    »I'm in no hurry,« was the abrupt reply.
    The girl hesitated.
    »Let us all have a drive together - with Mr. Peak, I mean - like when you
were here last.«
    »We'll see about it.«
    Buckland went slowly from the room.
    Late the same evening he sat with his father in the study. Mr. Warricombe
knew not the solace of tobacco, and his son, though never quite at ease without
pipe or cigar, denied himself in this room, with the result that he shifted
frequently upon his chair and fell into many awkward postures.
    »And how does Peak impress you?« he inquired, when the subject he most
wished to converse upon had been postponed to many others. It was clear that
Martin would not himself broach it.
    »Not disagreeably,« was the reply, with a look of frankness, perhaps
over-emphasised.
    »What is he doing? I have only heard from him once since he came down, and
he had very little to say about himself.«
    »I understand that he proposes to take the London B.A.«
    »Oh, then, he never did that? Has he unbosomed himself to you about his
affairs of old time?«
    »No. Such confidences are hardly called for.«
    »Speaking plainly, father, you don't feel any uneasiness?«
    Martin deliberated, fingering the while an engraved stone which hung upon
his watch-guard. He was at a disadvantage in this conversation. Aware that
Buckland regarded the circumstances of Peak's sojourn in the neighbourhood with
feelings allied to contempt, he could neither adopt the tone of easy confidence
natural to him on other occasions of difference in opinion, nor express himself
with the coldness which would have obliged his son to quit
