“Here’s my father,” as Mr Lester came hurriedly into the hall, nearly as much embarrassed as his children, and pale with an agitation which they did not share. Alvar turned round, and bowed low with a respectful grace that his brothers certainly could not have imitated.
Mr Lester came forward and held out his hand. It needed all his innate sense of good breeding to overcome the repulsion which the very idea of his strange son caused him. The sense of owing him amends for long-neglected duty, the knowledge how utterly out of place this foreigner must be as heir of Oakby, the feeling that by so recognising him he was wronging alike his forefathers and his other children, while he yet knew how much his whole life through he had wronged Alvar himself, came upon him with renewed force. Then as he heard such tones, and saw such a face as he had not seen for years, what rush of long past sentiment, what dead and buried love and hate came rushing over him with such agitating force, that in the effort to avoid a scene, and a display of feeling which, yielded to, might have smoothed the relations between them for ever, his greeting to his son was as cold as ice!
“How do you do, Alvar? I am glad to see you. We did not expect you so soon. You must have found your journey very cold.”
“I did not delay. It was my wish to see my father,” said Alvar, a little wistfully. “My father, I trust, will find me a dutiful son.”
Here Bob giggled, and Jack nearly knocked him off the ladder with the nudge evoked by his greater sense of propriety.
“No doubt—no doubt,” said Mr Lester. “I hope we shall understand each other, soon. Where’s Cheriton? Jack, suppose you show—him—your brother, his room. Dinner at seven, you know. I daresay you’re hungry.”
“I did take a cup of coffee, but it was not good,” said Alvar, as he followed Jack upstairs; and the latter, mortally afraid of a tête-à-tête, shut him into the bedroom prepared for him, and rushed downstairs to encounter Cheriton, who came hurrying in, thinking himself late for dinner.
“Cherry, he’s come!”
“Oh, Cherry, he’s so queer! He makes pretty speeches, and he bows!”
“He’s a regular nigger, he’s so black!”