"I got my first love of wandering when I was a very little lad," he said in his rather abrupt way. "My father brought me up on travel books and books of adventure. He had so longed to know other countries and other people, but this was denied him——If he had lived——!" He broke off sharply. Agnes Brenton looked at him; he was frowning, and he was staring into the fire; he seemed to have drifted far, far away in his thoughts from the light and warmth and cosy charm of his actual surroundings.
Suddenly he turned and looked at her; his eyes were very bright.
"My father was a hero," he said—there was something in his voice that made Mrs. Brenton bite her lip nervously—"he was a doctor—a man who worked all day and sometimes all night in that crowded, tragically poor factory town where I spent so many years of my life. I worshipped my father, Mrs. Brenton; he was an enthusiast, a dreamer, a saint. He died in harness, sacrificed to the poverty and misery of the people, who were his first thought. There was a fearful outbreak of fever and diphtheria, and he did superhuman work." Haverford shrugged his shoulders; he was trying to speak evenly. "Every man's endurance has a limit, and my father paid the natural, the inevitable penalty. That was a great many years ago, but he lives with me almost as clearly as though he were really in existence now! I have only one reproach against his memory"—the young man got up restlessly. His cigar had gone out, he found a box of matches, and lit it again. "He sent me away to avoid the infection," he said In a low voice, "and he died before I could get to him! That was hard! He could never have realized how hard that was to me, or surely he would not have done it."
Mrs. Brenton's eyes were wet. It was not alone his story, the strained tones of his voice that moved her; the man himself appealed to her sharply, and for the first time. She marvelled as she listened, as she looked at him now, how she could have so misunderstood him. It had become the fashion with most people to call Rupert Haverford hard names, to find him mean, selfish, and ungenerous; Mrs. Brenton had never gone so far as that. She had, in truth, judged him leniently, recognizing in his blunt fashion of speaking, in his straightforward manner, and rather deliberate methods, only the natural influence of his former circumstances; indeed, it had always seemed to her remarkable that any man who had toiled as Haverford had done, whose life had been set for so long in one narrow groove, should have taken his new place so quietly, and have moved with such unconscious dignity in the new world which revolved about him to-day. He was distinctly out of the fashion, it was true, in many ways, but he was never uncouth, and though there was at times a North Country burr in his voice, he spoke with refinement. In physique he was refined too, and no one could find fault with the way he dressed.
Mrs. Brenton had not gushed over him, but she had always liked him. Nevertheless, there had been moments when he had chilled her; moments in which the possibility of mingling Camilla Lancing's future with his (a scheme which she cherished warmly) had seemed almost preposterous; when he had made her both impatient and angry, and she had almost longed to shake him out of his grave, stolid ways and practical outlook.
To-night all this was changed; he was a new man to her to-night; she felt drawn to him very closely. She tried to say something in answer to his last speech, but even as the words trembled on her lips Haverford spoke on in his usual quiet way.
"When I do start on my travels I think I shall bequeath the care of my motors to you, Mrs. Brenton. Though you hate them, I know you are too tender-hearted to ill-treat them."
She laughed, falling in with his change of mood.
"I will take care of them if you will promise to come back. You must come back," she said, "and marry, and go into Parliament, and generally settle down."
"Yes, I suppose I shall marry some day," Haverford answered. He had passed away entirely from that touch of emotion; indeed, his eyes twinkled. "Marriage is about the one occupation that my change of fortune has suggested to me from the very commencement. But I am not in a hurry," he added. "Do you know why I like you, Mrs. Brenton?" he said all at once.