“Well?” he said.
Those blue eyes, gay but veiled by suffering, answered him.
“It’s damned hard on you, Colin,” he said. “Are you getting used to it, old boy?”
Colin, with one of those inimitable instinctive movements, laid his hand on his father’s shoulder.
“No, not a bit,” he said. “But I’ve got to. I can’t go on like this. I must feel friendly to Raymond and Violet. I must manage to rejoice in their happiness. Got any prescription for me, father? I’ll take it, whatever it is. Lord! How happy I used to be.”
All that Philip had missed in Rosina was here now; the tender, subtle mind, which should have been the complement of her beauty. His sympathy was up in arms for this beloved child of hers, and his sense of fairness elsewhere.
“Raymond’s doing his best, Colin,” he said. “I wonder....” and he paused.
“You can say nothing that will hurt me, father,” said Colin. “Go on.”
“Well, I wonder if you’re responding to that. To put it frankly, whenever he makes any approach to you, you snub him.”
Colin lifted his head.