The man listened without the slightest change of expression. The lines seemed deeper about his eyes, that was all. But the eyes were bright and as hard as the steel they resembled.
“You would marry him?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Knowing that he is a scoundrel?”
“How dare you say that, Mr Brood?”
“Because,” said he levelly, “he thinks he is my son.” Voices were heard on the stairs, Frederic's and Yvonne's. “He is coming now, my dear,” he went on, and then, after a pause fraught with significance, “and my wife is with him.”
Lydia closed her eyes, as if in dire pain. A dry sob was in her throat.
A strange thing happened to Brood, the man of iron. Tears suddenly rushed to his eyes.