"I'm glad I'm here!" Forrester involuntarily exclaimed; and it was at this that Mr. Harwood had pierced him with his eye and spoken his mind.
"I am glad too," said he, slowly; "yet I am sore—God knows how sore!"
The young man moved in his chair, but did not rise. Mr. Harwood held him with his eye. Forrester leant his elbow on the table, his head against his palm, and met that bitter, pitiable, yearning gaze.
"I am glad because Kenyon wanted you so much; sore, because he wanted you so much. Look at the reception he gave you, ill as he is! I never make him like that. I might have left him for weeks, alone with Ethel and the servants, and he wouldn't have welcomed me so. Yet I am always with the boy. I do everything for him. I have been another man to him, Charlie, since you were here last year. You taught me a lesson. I don't know whether to like you or hate you for it. You taught me to be my boy's friend—at any rate to try. It wasn't easy. We tired each other—we always did—we always may. We irritate each other too: he will seem frightened and fight shy of me. I suppose I deserve it—God knows! We have understood each other better, we have tired each other less—I am sure—since he has been up yonder. But all the time, mark you, he has been looking forward to your coming—to going to your school in the end. About that he has talked incessantly—as if it were the one thing to get better for—and about you. You're his hero, he worships you; I am only his father. You are everything to him...."
Forrester was inexpressibly shocked and moved. "You are mistaken, believe me you are!" he cried earnestly. "He has been telling me already how good you are to him, of all you do for him."
"Ah! he is a good boy; he is very grateful. He always says 'Thank you'—to me! Heaven, how I wish he'd forget that sometimes! But no; it was in those little things that I was continually finding fault with him, and now it's his turn. He has a special manner for me. He thinks before he speaks when he speaks to me. And I see it all! Why, I stand outside the door, and hear him talking to Ethel, and when I open it his very key changes. With you it's a hundred times worse. With you—God help me!" cried Harwood, with a harsh laugh, "I'm like a child myself ... jealous of you ... for winning what I never tried nor deserved to win."
He wiped the moisture from his face, and sat cold and still.
"I'll go to-morrow!" said Forrester, hoarsely.
"You will do nothing of the kind," retorted the other in his normal voice. "You will stay as long as you like—and Kenyon needs you."