Springing to his feet, Tad bore down on him. "Do you know what I call you? I call you an ass."
"Very likely. I'm only trying to explain to you why I can't be your brother—even if I am—your brother."
"It's because you don't want to be—and you damn well know it."
"That may be another way of putting it; but I'm not putting it that way."
Lily rose languidly, throwing out her words to nobody in particular. "I think he's a good sport, if you ask me. I wouldn't come into a family like us—not the way we are."
"Wait, Lily," Whitelaw cried, as she was sauntering out. He too got to his feet. "You've all spoken. You've done the best you could. I'm not blaming anyone. Now I want you all to understand—" He indicated Tom—"that this is my son. I know he's my son. I claim him as my son. Not even what he says himself can make any difference to me."
Tom strode across the room, grasping the other's hand. "Yes, sir; and you're my father. I know that too, and I claim you on my side. But we'll stop right there. It's as far as we can go. I'll be your son in every sense but that of—" He looked round about on them all—"but that of being your heir or a member of your family. I can't do that; but—between you and me—everything is understood."
He got out of the room with dignity. Passing Tad, he nodded, and said, "Thanks!" To Lily he said, "Thank you too. It was bully, what you said." Reaching the mother whom he didn't know and who didn't know him, he bowed low. Sitting again behind the tea-table, she lifted her hand for him to take it. He took it and kissed it. Her little soblike gasp followed him as he passed into the big dim hall.
He had taken no leave of Hildred, because he knew she would do what actually she did; but he didn't know that she would speak the words he heard spoken.