"I think you're unjust to us," said Wilbraham. "Say we hadn't prepared you for what you've been through--what nobody could have foreseen."
"Oh, it would have been just the same if I'd gone straight to Sandhurst--perhaps worse--if I hadn't known Viola."
"Well, that's where you're unjust. It was only Viola--or somebody like her--that you could have fallen in love with, as you did. We'd done that for you."
Harry thought this over. Wilbraham breathed more freely the longer his silence lasted. He recognized with gratitude that old sense of fairness and reasonableness which had never been absent in his dealings with Harry. "It's what you have to think of when you feel inclined to blame your grandmother," he said.
"I don't think I'm inclined to blame her," Harry answered to this. "I'm very sorry for her. That's why I want to let her down as easily as I can. Afterwards everything will be right for her, and she'll see--she's quite wise enough--that it was right that I should take my life into my own hands. That's what I'm going to do. I had to do it once before."
"Yes, in a wonderful way, I think. And she'll accept Viola. But not now. I should have to ask her for Viola, and I'm not going to do that. Besides, she's got other ideas in her head for me."
"Lady Sidney, I suppose you mean. From what your mother has written, you seem to want her to think that her wishes are being carried out."
"Sidney and I understand one another. She knows about Viola. I'm very glad she's here. I couldn't have stayed here without her and little Jane. I suppose the beastly world would say that I'm just amusing myself with a pretty girl, as I can't be with the girl I love. They might even think there's some danger in it. But the world doesn't know love as I know it." He turned to Wilbraham with a smile. "What you did, my friend, you and Granny between you, was to unfit me for the society of men. After being with nobody but men for all this time, I'm glad enough to have two girls as my friends before I go back to it. As for Granny, she's arranged all that for me, as she's used to arrange everything, and if she's disappointed with the outcome of it, I'm afraid it can't be helped. It's just that arranging that I have to make my stand against, with as little bother about it as possible."