“And do always what you wish,” she said, looking him full in the eyes.
“That’s right—try,” he said, drawing her down to kiss her, and then signing to her to go.
“I’m tired,” he said wearily. “Clive, take your little wife downstairs for a bit. Your hand, my boy. God bless you! Now, Doctor, I’ll have an hour’s sleep.”
The Doctor signed for the young people to go down; and as he took a chair by the bed’s head, Grantham Reed turned his head away from the light, and went off into the great sleep as calmly as a tired child.
Chapter Eleven.
Jessop Plays Trumps.
Jessop Reed, when he left his father’s bedroom, had gone straight down to the study, with his brow contracted and his heart full of bitterness, without seeing that he was closely watched, and that a pale, troubled face was raised over the top balustrade, which looked very dull and gloomy in the yellow light which streamed through the soot-darkened skylight panes.
“So that’s it,” he said to himself, as he closed the door and threw himself into his father’s great morocco-covered chair. “I’m nobody at all. The new king is to reign, and his name is Clive. I’m not even executor. No voice in anything; only the naughty boy to be punished. If I could only see that will!”