It is difficult to judge of any course of conduct entirely on its own merits, when it has a reflex action on ourselves. When Rendel before his marriage used to go to Prince's Gate and to see Rachel, absolutely oblivious of herself, hovering tenderly round her mother, watching to see that her father's wishes were fulfilled, that unselfish devotion and absorption in filial duty seemed to him the most entirely beautiful thing on this earth. But when, instead of being the spectator of the situation, he became an active participator in it, when the stream of Rachel's filial devotion was diverted from that of her conjugal duties, it unconsciously assumed another aspect in his eyes. But not for worlds would he have put into words the annoyance he could not help feeling, and Rachel was entirely unconscious of his attitude. The devoted, uncritical affection for her father which had grown up with her life was in her mind so absolutely taken for granted as one of the foundations of existence, that it did not even occur to her that Rendel might possibly not look at it in the same light. She took for granted that he would share her attitude towards her father as he had shared her adoration for her mother. It was all part of her entire trust in Rendel, and the simple directness with which she approached the problems of life. She had, before her marriage, expressed an earnest wish, which Rendel understood as a condition, that even if her father did not wish to live with them, she might share in his life and watch over him, and Rendel had accepted the condition and promised that it should be as she wished. But it is obviously not the actual making of a promise that is the difficulty. If it were possible when we pledge ourselves to a given course for our imagination to show us in a vision of the future the innumerable occasions on which we should be called upon to redeem, each time by a conscious separate effort, that lightly given pledge of an instant, the stoutest-hearted of us would quail at the prospect. Rendel looked back with a sigh to those days, that seemed already to have receded into a luminous distance, when Rachel, alone with him in Scotland, with no divided allegiance, had given herself up, heart and mind, to the new happiness, the new existence, that was opening before her.

The danger of pouring life while it is still fluid into the wrong mould, of letting it drift and harden into the wrong shape, is an insidious peril which is not sufficiently guarded against. It is easy enough to say, Begin as you mean to go on; but the difficulty is to know exactly the moment when you begin, and when the point of going on has been arrived at; and of drifting gradually into some irremediable course of action from which it is almost impossible to turn back without difficulty and struggle. There had been a feeling that everything was somehow temporary during those first days at Cosmo Place, which extended into the weeks. Sir William held as a principle, and was quite genuine in his intention when he said it, that young people ought to be left to themselves. He would not, therefore, take up his abode under their roof, but still that he should do so eventually was felt by all concerned as a vague possibility which prevented in the young household a sense of having finally and comfortably settled down. Indeed, as it was, it was perhaps more unsettling to Rachel, and therefore to her husband, to have Sir William coming and going than it would have been to have him actually under the same roof. If he had been living with them his presence would have been a matter of course, and less constant companionship and diversion would probably have been considered necessary for him than they were when he dropped in at odd times. The advancing season and the grey dark mornings made the early rides impossible. Rachel in her secret soul did not regret them. Sir William had taken the habit of looking in at Cosmo Place on his way to Pall Mall and further eastward, and it always gave Rachel a pang of remorse if she found that by an unlucky chance she had been out of the way when he came. He would also sometimes come in on his way back, as has been said, in the obvious expectation of having a game of chess, of which Rendel, if he were at home, had not the heart to disappoint him. In these days there was not much occupation for him in the City. The excitement of starting and floating the "Equator" Company and the allotting of the shares to the eager band of subscribers had been accomplished some time since. The "Equator's" hour, however, had not come yet. The outlook in the City was not encouraging for those who knew how to read the weather chart of the coming days. The heart of the country was still beating fast and tumultuously after the emotions of the past two years; it needed a period of assured quiet to regain its normal condition. In the meantime the storm seemed to be subsiding. The great railway laying its iron grip on the heart of Africa was advancing steadily from the north as well as from the south: it was nearing the Equator. The country, its imagination profoundly stirred by the enterprise, watched it in suspense. But until the meeting of the two giant highways was effected, everything depended upon an equable balance of forces, of which a touch might destroy the equilibrium. German possessions and German forces lay perilously near the meeting of the two lines. At any moment a spark from some other part of the world might be wafted to Africa and set the fierce flame of war ablaze in the centre of the continent.

The General Election was coming within measurable distance; the Liberal Peace Crusade was strenuously canvassing the country in favour of coming to a definite understanding with certain foreign powers.

At the house in Cosmo Place it was no longer always possible, as on that first evening, to avoid the subject of politics.

"I must say," said Rendel one night with enthusiasm—Stamfordham had made a big speech the day before of which the papers were full—"Stamfordham is a great speaker, and a great man to boot."

"A great speaker, perhaps," Sir William said. "I don't know that that is entirely what you want from the man at the helm."

"Well, proverbially it isn't," said Rendel, with a smile, determined to be good-humoured.

"As to being a great man," continued Sir William, "anybody who knocks down everything that comes in his way and stands upon it looks rather big."

"Even admitting that," said Rendel, "it seems to me that the determination and courage necessary to knock down what is in your way, when it can't be got out by any other method, is part of what makes a great statesman."

"You speak," said Sir William, "as if he were a savage potentate."

"In some respects," said Rendel, "the savage potentate and civilised ruler are inevitably alike. The ultimate ground, the ultimate arbiter of their empire, is force."

"Empire!" said Sir William. "That is the cry! In your greed for empire you lose sight of everything but the aggrandisement of a dominion already so immense as to be unwieldy."

"Still," said Rendel, "as we have this big thing in our hands, it is better to keep it there than let it drop and break to pieces."

"I don't wish to let it drop," said Gore. "I wish to be content to increase it by friendly intercourse with the world, by the arts of peace and civilisation, and not by destruction and bloodshed."

"I am afraid," said Rendel, "that the savage, which, as you say too truly, still lurks in the majority of civilised beings, will not be content to see the world governed on those amiable lines."

"There I must beg leave to differ from you," said Sir William, "I believe that the majority of civilised human beings will, when it has been put before them, be on the side of peace."

"We shall see," Rendel said, with a smile which was perhaps not as conciliatory as he intended it to be.

"Yes, you will see when the General Election comes," said Gore. "And if it goes for us, and we have a Cabinet composed of men who are not the mere puppets in the hands of an autocrat, the destinies of the world will be altered."

"Father," said Rachel, "do you really think that is how the General Election will go?"

"Quite possibly," Gore said, with decision. Rendel said nothing.

"Oh, father!" said Rachel. "I wish that you were in Parliament! Suppose you were in the Government!"

"Ah, well, my life as you know, was otherwise filled up," said Sir William, with a sigh; "but in that case the Imperialists perhaps might not have found everything such plain sailing." And so much had he penetrated himself with the conviction of what he was saying, that he felt himself, as he sat there opposite Rendel, whose wisdom and sagacity in reality so far exceeded his own, to be in the position of the older, wiser man of great influence and many opportunities condescending to explain his own career to an obscure novice.

Rendel looked across at Rachel sitting opposite to him, listening to what her father said with her customary air of sweet and gentle deference, and then smiling at himself; and again he inwardly vowed that, for her sake, he would endure the daily pinpricks that are almost as difficult to bear in the end as one good sword-thrust.

"I must say it will be interesting to see who goes out as Governor of British Zambesiland," he said presently, looking up from the paper. "That will be a big job if you like."

"Let's hope they will find a big man to do it," said Sir William.

"I heard to-day," said Rendel, "that it would probably be Belmont."

"Well, he'll be a firebrand Governor after Stamfordham's own heart," said Gore. "It's absurd sending all these young men out to these important posts."

"That is rather Stamfordham's theory," said Rendel—"to have youngish men, I mean."

"If he would confine himself to theories," said Sir William, "it would be better for England at this moment."

"It might, however, interfere with his practical use as a Foreign Secretary," Rendel was about to say, but he checked the words on his tongue.

After dinner that evening he remained downstairs under pretext of writing some letters, while Rachel proposed to her father to give her a lesson in chess.

Rendel turned on the electric light in his study, shut the door, stood in front of the fire and looked round him with a delightful sense of possession, of privacy, of well-being. His new house—indeed, one might almost have said his new life—was still so recent a possession as to have lost none of its preciousness. He still felt a childish joy in all its details. The house was one of those built within the last decade which seem to have made a struggle to escape the uniformity of the older streets. The front door opened into a square hall, from the left side of which opened the dining-room, from the right the study, both of these rooms having bow windows, built with that broad sweep of curve which makes for beauty instead of vulgarity. The house, Rendel had told his wife with a smile when they came to it, he had furnished for her, with the exception of one room in it; the study he had arranged for himself. And it certainly was a room in which, to judge by appearances, a worker need never be stopped in his work by the paltry need of any necessary tool. Rendel was a man of almost exaggerated precision and order. Everything lay ready to his hand in the place where he expected to find it. A glance at his well-appointed writing-table gave evidence of it. The back wall of the study, opposite the window, was lined with books. On the wall over the fireplace hung a large map of Africa. Rendel looked intently at it as he thought of the stirring pages of history that were in the making on that huge, misshapen continent, of the field that it was going to be for the statesmen and administrators of the future: he thought of Lord Belmont, only two years older than himself, with whom he had been at Eton and at Oxford, and wondered what it felt like to be in his place and have the ball at one's feet. For Rendel in his heart was burning with ambition of no ignoble kind. He was burning to do, to act, and not to watch only; to take his part in shaping the destinies of his fellow-men, to help the world into what he believed to be the right path; and he would do it yet. In his mind that evening, as he stood upright, intent, looking on into the future, there was not the shadow of a doubt that he would carry out his purpose. He had come downstairs smarting under the impression of Sir William's last words when they were discussing the new Governor. Then he recovered, and reminded himself of the obvious truism that the man occupied with politics must school himself to have his opinions contradicted by his opponents, and must make up his mind that there are as many people opposed to his way of thinking in the world as agreeing with it. But it is one thing to engage in a free fight in the open field, and another to keep parrying the petty blows dealt by a persecuting antagonist. Day by day, hour by hour, as the time went on, Rendel had to make a conscious effort to keep to the line he had traced out for himself; he had to tighten his resolution, to readjust his burden. The yoke of even a beloved companionship may be willingly borne, but it is a yoke and a restraint for all that. But Rendel would not have forgotten it. He accepted the lot he had chosen, unspeakably grateful to Rachel for having bestowed such happiness on him, ready and determined to fulfil his part of the compact, to carry out, even at the cost of a daily and hourly sacrifice, the bargain he had made. And, after all, as long as he made up his mind that it did not signify, he could well afford, in the great happiness that had fallen to his lot, to disregard the minor annoyances. His life, his standards, should be arranged on a scale that would enable him to disregard them. If one is only moving along swiftly enough, one has impetus to glide over minor impediments without being stopped or turned aside by them. For Rachel's sake all would be possible, it would be almost easy. At any rate, it should be done. Rendel's will felt braced and strengthened by his resolve, and he knew that he would be master of his fate. There are certain moments in our lives when we stop at a turning, it may be, to take stock of our situation, when we look back along the road we have come—how interminable it seemed as we began it!—and look along the one we are going to travel, prepared to start onward again with a fresh impulse of purpose and energy. That night, as Rendel looked on into the future, he felt like the knight who, lance in rest but ready to his hand, rides out into the world ready to embrace the opportunity that shall come to him.