"Well—yes, more or less; anyhow, he seemed ready to come to my hand for the tit-bits I can give him. The world likes to be fêted, likes good dinners and high-class balls; but above all it likes to be amused. I'm going to give it what it wants."
Stafford looked up. This declaration coming from his father jarred upon
Stafford, whose heart he had won.
"Why should you trouble, sir?" he said, quietly. "I should have thought you would have been satisfied."
"Because I want something more from it; something in return," said Sir Stephen, with a smile. "Satisfied? No man is satisfied. I've an ambition yet ungratified, and I mean to gratify it. You think I'm vaunting, Mr. Howard?" "No, I think you are simply stating a fact," responded Howard, gravely.
"I thank you, sir," said Sir Stephen, as gravely. "I speak so confidently because I see my way clearly before me. I generally do. When I don't, I back out and lie low."
Stafford found this too painful. He rose to get a light and sauntered into the billiard-room and tried the table.
Sir Stephen looked after him musingly, and seemed to forget Howard's presence; then suddenly his face flushed and his eyes shone with a curious mixture of pride and tenderness and the indomitable resolution which had helped him to fight his "wild beast." He leant forward and touched Howard's knee.
"Don't you understand!" he said, earnestly, and in a low voice which the click of the billiard balls prevented Stafford from hearing. "It is for him! For my boy, Mr. Howard! It's for him that I have been working, am still working. For myself—I am satisfied—as he said; but not for him. I want to see him still higher up the ladder than I have climbed. I have done fairly well—heaven and earth! if anyone had told me twenty years ago that I should be where and what I am to-day—well, I'd have sold my chances for a bottle of ale. You smile. Mr. Howard, it was anything but beer and skittles for me then. I want to leave my boy a—title. Smile again, Mr. Howard; I don't mind."
"I haven't a smile about me, sir," said Howard.
"Ah, you understand. You see my mind. I don't know why I've told you, excepting that it is because you are Staff's friend. But I've told you now. And am I not right? Isn't it a laudable ambition? Can you say that he will not wear it well, however high the title may be? Where is there such another young fellow? Proud—pride is too poor a word for what I feel for him!"