But he had promised to see Clara either that day or the next, and he could not bring himself to unsay all that he had said to her.

He left his father's room sorrowful at heart, and discontented.

He had expected that his tidings would have been received in so far other a manner; that he would have been able to go from his father's study up stairs to his mother's room with so exulting a step; that his news, when once the matter was ratified by his father's approval, would have flown about the house with so loud a note of triumph.

And now it was so different! His father had consented; but it was too plain that there was no room for any triumph.
"Well, Herbert!" said Emmeline, jumping up to meet him as he returned to a small back drawing-room, through which he had gone to his father's dressing-room.

She had calculated that he would come there, and that she might thus get the first word from him after the interview was over.
But there was a frown upon his brow, and displeasure in his eyes.
There was none of that bright smile of gratified pride with which she had expected that her greeting would have been met.