“There will, I fear, be a certain loss of dignity should I be called upon to answer for my misdoing,” Henry concluded, “but I can assure you that I shall take no steps to evade any action which may ensue. That, I think, is all. It only remains for me, Gregory, to wish you success abroad. Of our own future here, we will not speak. Whilst the Ballaston treasures and heirlooms remain intact my place is with them. A pleasant voyage, Gregory!”
He shook hands and conducted them courteously to the door. His little pat on his nephew’s shoulder was the nearest approach to affection he had ever shown. Gregory and his father descended the stairs almost in silence. When they reached the hall, Gregory sank into a chair and held his head in his hands.
“Dad, was that a dream?” he demanded. “I can’t conceive it. Uncle Henry, of all men in the world!”
“It is the Ballaston spirit concealed,” Sir Bertram murmured.
For a quarter of an hour or so father and son sat in the great hall without speech. There was a curiously intense silence, broken only by the ticking of a large clock, and, through the wide-flung window, the twittering of a nightingale preparing for his aftermath of song. Sir Bertram rose at last to his feet.
“Let us walk on the terrace, Gregory,” he suggested. “The car will be round in a few minutes.”
They strolled out together, Sir Bertram correct and debonair, from the polish of his well-brushed hair to the pearl studs in his shirt and his scrupulously cut dinner clothes; Gregory in travelling tweeds, prepared for his journey. Sir Bertram took his son’s arm as they commenced their leisurely promenade.
“I am afraid,” he said, in a tone of very rare gravity, “that it’s all up with us Ballastons, Gregory. You’re young and fit though, and I’ve got quite enough to amuse myself with—it will have to be France, I suppose, or Spain. It’s all a compromise, of course, and a cursed compromise. There’s only one place for an Englishman to live, and that’s on his own land. It’s the devil’s own luck to lose Ballaston, but we’ve gone the limit, eh, Gregory, to try to keep it?”
“Yes,” Gregory admitted. “We made a bid for it, at any rate—even Uncle Henry!”
His tone had grown more serious. The shadow of something unspoken seemed to be lying between them.