The artist glanced from him to the Mayor, and a look of sudden pain swept across his face. It was a strange, jealous pang to strike a man of his age.
"Go," said the Mayor gently to the lad; "go, and leave us alone, I wish to speak with your father."
Joseph looked at his father questioningly.
"Go!" said the old man, in a voice so husky that he could only force himself to utter that single word.
Joseph went out, and those two old men—for the Mayor looked very old that night—sat down in the dim chamber, and talked together for the first time in their lives.
Joseph shut himself in the dark hall, and found a seat upon the stairs, filled with vague wonder; for his keen imagination seized upon this event, and his affectionate nature turned lovingly to the old men, whose voices came through the ill-fitting door in indistinct murmurs.
It must have been an hour when the door opened, and Joseph saw the Mayor and his father standing just within the room. The light from a tallow candle fell upon them from behind, striking their side faces with singular effect. Both were pale, but the cheek of the Mayor, on which the light lay strongest, glistened with moisture. Could it be that this was the trace of tears?—and, if so, what power had that humble artist, to make a man weep who had not been known to shed tears since his boyhood!
The artist too had a look of tender sadness on his face, as if all his deeper feelings had been moved.
The two old men—we call them old, but events rather than time had left hoary marks upon them—the two old men held each other by the hand; Joseph arose and drew back, that the Mayor might pass, but when he went by without a word, the boy was seized with a pang of disappointment, and followed him.
"Mayor," he said, "please won't you say good-bye to me, I have wanted to see you so much all day?"