“Who told you so?” I asked, very much surprised.

 

“Mr. Ackroyd. About a week ago. He is very pleased about it—has long desired

that such a thing should come to pass, or so I understood from him. I even

believe that he brought some pressure to bear upon the young man. That is never

wise. A young man should marry to please himself—not to please a stepfather from

whom he has expectations.”

 

My ideas were completely upset. I could not see Ackroyd taking a hairdresser

into his confidence, and discussing the marriage of his niece and stepson with

him. Ackroyd extends a genial patronage to the lower orders, but he has a very

great sense of his own dignity. I began to think that Porrott couldn’t be a

hairdresser after all.

 

To hide my confusion, I said the first thing that came into my head.

 

“What made you notice Ralph Paton? His good looks?”

 

“No, not that alone—though he is unusually good-looking for an Englishman—what

your lady novelists would call a Greek God. No, there was something about that

young man that I did not understand.”

 

He said the last sentence in a musing tone of voice which made an indefinable

impression upon me. It was as though he was summing up the boy by the light of

some inner knowledge that I did not share. It was that impression that was left