“Pish! mawkish youth. Great ugly fellow like you thinking of nothing else but Janet. Wait till you’ve been her slave as I have for eighteen years.”
“Pleasant slavery, Doctor,” said the young man, smiling, as he allowed himself to be led out on to the verandah just over the gas-lamp which helped to light up Great Guildford Street, W.C.
“Is it, sir? You don’t know what a jealous little she-tartar she is.”
“I warn you I shall tell her every word you say, Doctor. But it’s of no good. I shall not back out. Look at her dear face now.”
Reed caught the little Doctor by the shoulder, and pointed to where his daughter sat with the light of one of the shaded lamps falling upon her pretty, animated face, as she laughed at something a sharp-looking, handsome young man was saying—an anecdote of some kind which amused the rest of the group in old Grantham Reed’s drawing-room.
“Oh yes, she’s pretty enough,” said the Doctor testily. “I wish she weren’t. Don’t let that brother of yours be quite so civil to her, boy. I don’t like Jessop.”
“Nor me?” said the young man, smiling.
“Of course I don’t, sir. Hang it all! how can a man like the young scoundrel who robs him of his child’s love?”
“No, sir,” said Clive Reed gravely; “only evokes a new love that had lain latent, and offers him the love and respect of a son as well.”
Doctor Praed caught the young man’s hand in his and gave it a firm pressure. Then he cleared his throat before he spoke again, but his voice sounded husky as he said—