"Yes, I should," replied Tom, bluntly.
"No doubt, end not only because of its being the cricket week?"
Tom again looked up into his friend's face, with a quick gesture, not altogether of surprise; and then he turned rather red in the face, I think, and looked down upon the path. There was a broken twig upon it, which engrossed his attention, perhaps; for he took great pains to turn it over with his foot, so as to pass it under a kind of general examination. He didn't speak.
Until now the two gentlemen had remained, as it seemed, rooted to the spot, and the fair Helen was still employed in filling her little flower basket. This completed, she turned from the border and disappeared. Apparently this broke the spell, for Tincroft now slipped his arm within that of his young friend, and the two paced up and down the long path as they communed together.
"My dear lad," said John, when they were thus in motion, "your father and I were dear friends when we were about your age. We were almost always together when we were at Oxford. We never had a serious disagreement in our lives; I received many a kindness from him; and though we have not seen so much of each other of late years as formerly, we are as much friends as ever. Don't you believe this?"
Tom did believe this. His father always spoke in the warmest terms of affection of his old friend Tincroft, he said.
"And if I should say anything to you that seems to go a little against the grain, Tom, you won't be more offended than you can help, will you? Because you may be sure I don't mean anything really unkind to the son of so old and dear a friend as your father is."
No, Tom wouldn't be offended.
"I know," continued John, "that some persons do sometimes make great mistakes, which lead them into great impertinences and create a great deal of confusion and mischief as well. I remember a case in point, where a man who in the early part of his life had gone very far astray in vicious pursuits, became in his later years, when broken down in health, the moat uncharitable censor of the supposed failings of his friends and acquaintances that I ever had the unhappiness of knowing. And on one occasion, he fell foul of the character of a friend who, in those old times, had rescued him from disgrace and ruin; and quarrelled with this benefactor by charging with folly which had not the slightest foundation in fact. I hope, Tom, you won't think that I am one of that sort?"
No, Tom was sure that his father's old friend was not.