With Edged Tools Part 67

"Yes," answered Jack softly.

Sir John looked towards him, but he said nothing. His att.i.tude was interrogatory. There were a thousand questions in the turn of his head, questions which one gentleman could not ask another.

Jack met his gaze. They were still wonderfully alike, these two men, though one was in his prime while the other was infirm. On each face there was the stamp of a long-drawn, silent pride; each was a type of those haughty conquerors who stepped, mail-clad, on our sh.o.r.e eight hundred years ago. Form and feature, mind and heart, had been handed down from father to son, as great types are.

"One may have the right feeling and bestow it by mistake on the wrong person," said Jack.

Sir John's fingers were at his lips.

"Yes," he said rather indistinctly, "while the right person is waiting for it."

Jack looked up sharply, as if he either had not heard or did not understand.

"While the right person is waiting for it," repeated Sir John deliberately.

"The right person--?"

"Jocelyn Gordon," exclaimed Sir John, "is the right person."

Jack shrugged his shoulders and leant back so that the firelight did not shine upon his face. "So I found out eighteen months ago," he said, "when it was too late."

"There is no such thing as too late for that," said Sir John in his great wisdom. "Even if you were both quite old it would not be too late.

I have known it for longer than you. I found it out two years ago."

Jack looked across the room into the keen, worldly-wise old face.

"How?" he inquired.

"From her. I found it out the moment she mentioned your name. I conducted the conversation in such a manner that she had frequently to say it, and whenever your name crossed her lips she--gave herself away."

Jack shook his head with an incredulous smile.

"Moreover," continued Sir John, "I maintain that it is not too late."

There followed a silence; both men seemed to be wrapped in thought, the same thoughts with a difference of forty years of life in the method of thinking them.

"I could not go to her with a lame story like that," said Jack. "I told her all about Millicent."

"It is just a lame story like that that women understand," answered Sir John. "When I was younger I thought as you do. I thought that a man must needs bring a clean slate to the woman he asks to be his wife. It is only his hands that must be clean. Women see deeper into these mistakes of ours than we do; they see the good of them where we only see the wound to our vanity. Sometimes one would almost be inclined to think that they prefer a few mistakes in the past because it makes the present surer. Their romance is a different thing from ours--it is a better thing, deeper and less selfish. They can wipe the slate clean and never look at it again. And the best of them--rather like the task."

Jack made no reply. Sir John Meredith's chin was resting on his vast necktie. He was looking with failing eyes into the fire. He spoke like one who was sure of himself--confident in his slowly acc.u.mulated store of that knowledge which is not written in books.

"Will you oblige me?" he asked.

Jack moved in his chair, but he made no answer. Sir John did not indeed expect it. He knew his son too well.

"Will you," he continued, "go out to Africa and take your lame story to Jocelyn just as it is?"

There was a long silence. The old worn-out clock on the mantelpiece wheezed and struck six.

"Yes," answered Jack at length, "I will go."

Sir John nodded his head with a sigh of relief. All, indeed, comes to him who waits.

"I have seen a good deal of life," he said suddenly, arousing himself and sitting upright in the stiff-backed chair, "here and there in the world; and I have found that the happiest people are those who began by thinking that it was too late. The romance of youth is only fit to write about in books. It is too delicate a fabric for everyday use. It soon wears out or gets torn."

Jack did not seem to be listening.

"But," continued Sir John, "you must not waste time. If I may suggest it, you will do well to go at once."

"Yes," answered Jack, "I will go in a month or so. I should like to see you in a better state of health before I leave you."

Sir John pulled himself together. He threw back his shoulders and stiffened his neck.

"My health is excellent," he replied st.u.r.dily. "Of course I am beginning to feel my years a little, but one must expect to do that after--eh--er--sixty. C'est la vie."

He made a little movement of the hands.

"No," he went on, "the sooner you go the better."

"I do not like leaving you," persisted Jack.

Sir John laughed rather testily.

"That is rather absurd," he said; "I am accustomed to being left. I have always lived alone. You will do me a favour if you will go now and take your pa.s.sage out to Africa."

"Now--this evening?"

"Yes--at once. These offices close about half-past six, I believe. You will just have time to do it before dinner."

Jack rose and went towards the door. He went slowly, almost reluctantly.

"Do not trouble about me," said Sir John, "I am accustomed to being left."

He repeated it when the door had closed behind his son.

The fire was low again. It was almost dying. The daylight was fading every moment. The cinders fell together with a crumbling sound, and a greyness crept into their glowing depths. The old man sitting there made no attempt to add fresh fuel.

"I am accustomed," he said, with a half-cynical smile, "to being left."

CHAPTER XLV. THE TELEGRAM

How could it end in any other way?

You called me, and I came home to your heart.