“I should like to meet him under one of our generals,” said Andrew. “I consider it an insult for a fellow like that to be speaking to your mother—our mother, Frank, if she talks about me like that. I hate him, and feel as if I should like to go and hit him across the face with my glove.”
“What for? Oh, I say, Drew, what a hot-headed fellow you are.”
“It isn’t my head, Franky; it’s my heart. It seems to burn when I see these insolent Dutch officers lording it here, and smiling in their half-contemptuous, half-insulting way at our English ladies. Ugh! I wonder your father doesn’t stop it. Look at him yonder, standing as if he were made of stone. I shall tell him what I think to-night.”
“You would never be so foolish and insulting,” said Frank warmly. “He would be angry.”
“No, I suppose I must not,” said Andrew gloomily. “He would say it was the impertinence of a boy.”
They had to separate directly after, and a few minutes later Frank saw his father crossing the room toward the door. Frank was nearest, and by a quick movement reached it first, and stepped outside so as to get a word or two from him as he came out. But Sir Robert was stopped on his way, and some minutes elapsed before Frank saw the manly, upright figure emerge from the gaily dressed crowd which filled the anteroom, and stride toward him, but evidently without noticing his presence.
“Father,” he whispered.
Sir Robert turned upon him a fierce, angry face, his eyes flashing, and lips moving as if he were talking to himself. But the stern looks softened to a smile as he recognised his son, and he spoke hurriedly:
“Don’t stop me, my boy; I’m not fit to talk to you now. Oh, absurd!”
“Is anything the matter, father?” said Frank anxiously, as he laid his hand on his father’s arm.