Poor Cecil! there was less pity to be spared to her because of the
intense relief it was to be free from her father, and to be able to
stand in a knot consulting on the steps, without his coming out to
find out what they were talking about, and to favour them with some
Dunstone counsel.
The consultation was about Mr. Moy. It was determined that since
Archie was in England, it would be better not to wait till Herbert
was recovered, but that Miles and Julius should go together at once
to see what effect they could produce on him.
They drove together to his office. He was a tall man, a few years
over forty, and had hitherto been portly and well-preserved, with a
certain serene air of complacent prosperity about him, that had
always been an irritation to the county families, with whom he tried
to assert an equality; but as he rose to greet the brothers, there
was a bent and shrunken look about him: the hair on his temples had
visibly whitened, his cheeks seemed to have sunk in, and there were
deep furrows on them. Altogether he had grown full twenty years
older in appearance since he had stood proposing a popular toast at
the dinner at the town-hall.
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