The two had not moved when St. George re-entered the room some moments later. Harry's head still lay on her breast, the thin, transparent hands tight about his neck.
CHAPTER XII
The colonel's treatment of Harry at the club had cleared the air of any doubt that either the boy or St. George might have had concerning Rutter's frame of mind. Henceforth the boy and the man would conduct their lives as if the Lord of Moorlands did not exist.
So the boy unpacked the things which Alec had brought in, and with his mother's assistance—who came in once a week—hung up his hunting-clothes in the closet, racked up his guns and fishing-rods over the mantel, and suspended his favorite saddle by a stirrup on a hook in the hall. Then the two had set out his books and miniatures; one of his mother, which he kissed tenderly, with the remark that it wasn't half as pretty as the original, and then propped up in the place of honor in the middle of his desk, and another of his father, which he placed on an adjoining table—as well as his few belongings and knickknacks. And so the outcast settled down determined not only to adapt himself to the comforts—or want of them—to be found under St. George's roof, but to do it cheerfully, gratefully, and like a man and a gentleman.
To none of all this did his father offer a single objection. “Make a clean sweep of Mr. Harry Rutter's things,” he had said to Alec, “so that I may be relieved from the annoyance of a second delivery.”
Alec had repeated the order to Harry word for word, adding: “Don't you sass back, Marse Harry—let him blow hisse'f out—he don't mean nothin'. He's dat mad he's crazy—gits dat way sometimes—den purty soon he's fit to bust hisse'f wide open a-cryin'! I see him do dat once when you warn't mo'n so high, and de doctor said you was daid fo' sho'.”
Harry made no reply, but it did not ruffle his temper. His duty was no longer to be found at Moorlands; his Uncle George claimed him. All his hours would now be devoted to showing him how grateful he was for his protection and guidance. Time enough for his father, and time enough for Kate, for that matter, should the clouds ever lift—as lift they would—but his Uncle George first, last, and all the time.
And St. George appreciated it to the full. Never had he been so happy. Even the men at the club saw the change, and declared he looked ten years younger—fifteen really, when Harry was with him, which was almost always the case—for out of consideration for St. George and the peculiar circumstances surrounding the boy's condition, his birth and station, and the pride they took in his pluck, the committee had at last stretched the rule and had sent Mr. Henry Gilmor Rutter of Moorlands—with special reference to “Moorlands,” a perennial invitation entitling him to the club's privileges—a card which never expired because it was systematically renewed.
And it was not only at the club that the two men were inseparable. In their morning walks, the four dogs in full cry; at the races; in the hunts, when some one loaned both Harry and his uncle a mount—at night, when Todd passed silently out, leaving all the bottled comforts behind him—followed by—“Ah, Harry!—and you won't join me? That's right, my son—and I won't ask you,” the two passed almost every hour of the day and night together. It was host one minute and father the next.