“Thoroughly,” was the reply, “and we have fought together in the past. He will forgive me what I have said, as I do you, and I shall tell him when he comes how glad I am to see that he has such a son and is so bravely served.”
For answer the old soldier hesitatingly took the proffered hand, and then gladly made his retreat, the pair following him slowly out into the shady piazza, where they stood watching till he disappeared, when the visitor, after glancing round, gathered his toga round him, and sank down into a stone seat, beside one of the shadow-flecked pillars, frowning heavily the while.
“He means well, sir,” said Marcus, hastily; “but I’m sure my father would have been sorry if he had heard. I am glad, though, that I asked you in.”
“Why?” said the visitor, with a peculiar look in his eyes.
“Because you say you are an old friend of his, and, of course, I didn’t know. It was only out of civility that I did so.”
“Yes, so I suppose,” was the reply. “Poor fellow! Your man meant well,” continued the visitor, with his whole manner changed, and he spoke in a half-mocking, cynical way which puzzled and annoyed the boy. “A poor, weak, foolish fellow, though, who hardly understands what he meant. Don’t you think he was very weak, bull-headed and absurd?”
“Well—no,” said the boy, quickly, and his face began to flush, and grew the deeper in tint as he noticed a supercilious, mocking smile playing upon the visitor’s lips. “Serge is a very true, honest fellow, and thought he was doing right.”
“Yes, of course,” said the other, “but some people in meaning to do right often commit themselves and do great wrong.”
“But you knew my father well?” said Marcus, hastily, to change the conversation. “I never heard him mention you.”
“No, I suppose not,” said the visitor, thoughtfully, but with a mocking smile upon his lip growing more marked as he went on. “I don’t suppose he would ever mention me. A very good, true fellow, Cracis, and, as I said, we were once great friends. But a weak and foolish man who got into very great trouble with the Senate and with me. There was great trouble at the time, and I had to defend him.”