Dawes conducted Riggs to the dining-room door. There he turned and remarked:
“Stick to that resolution, Freddy. See what old man Riggs has come to! If it wasn't for me and your father he'd be in the gutter.”
“That's right, Freddy,” agreed Mr Riggs with rare amiability. He felt that he owed something to Frederic in the way of apology.
Father and son faced each other after the old men had disappeared. They were a striking pair, each in his way an example of fine, clean manhood. The father was taller by two inches than the son, and yet Frederic was nearly six feet in his stockings. Both were spare men, erect and gracefully proportioned.
Brood gave out the impression of great strength, of steel sinews, of invincible power; Frederic did not suggest physical strength, and yet he was a clean-limbed, well-built fellow. He had a fine head, a slim body whose every movement proclaimed nervous energy, and a face that denoted temperament of the most pronounced character. His hair was black and straight, growing thickly above the forehead and ears; his eyes were of a deep gray, changeable at the dictates of his emotions. A not unhealthy pallor lay on the surface of his skin, readily submissive to the sensations which produce colour at the slightest provocation. His eyebrows were rather thick, but delicately arched, and the lashes were long. It was not a strong face, nor was it weak; it represented character without force.
On the other hand, James Brood's lean, handsome face was full of power. His gray eyes were keen, steady, compelling, and seldom alight with warmth. His jaw was firm, square, resolute, and the lines that sank heavily into the flesh in his cheeks were put there not by age but by the very vigour of manhood. His hair was quite gray.
Frederic waited for his father to speak. He had ventured a remark before the departure of the old men and it had been ignored. But James Brood had nothing to say.
“She is very attractive, father,” said the young man at last, almost wistfully. He did not realise it, but he was groping for sympathy. Brood had been in the house for a quarter of an hour, after an absence of nearly a year, and yet he might have been away no longer than a day for all that he revealed in his attitude toward his son. His greeting had been cold, casual, matter-of-fact. Frederic expected little more than that; still he felt in a vague way that now, if never again, the ice of reserve might be broken between them, if only for a moment. He was ready and willing to do his part.
Brood was studying the young man's face with an intensity that for the moment disconcerted him. He seemed bent on fixing certain features in his mind's eye, as if his memory had once played him false and should not do so again. It was a habit of Brood's, after prolonged separations, to look for something in the boy's face that he wanted to see and yet dreaded, something that might have escaped him when in daily contact with him. Now, at the end of the rather offensive scrutiny, he seemed to shake his head slightly, although one could not have been sure.
“And as charming as she is attractive, Frederic,” he said, with a faint flush of the enthusiasm he suppressed.