“My son,” said Francis, glad to say something, for it had just occurred to him that this old lunatic was the father of his new son-in-law. He was infinitely relieved when Serge said in a whisper:
“I’ll take him home. It’s on my way.”
They parted company as they came into the Burdley Road. Francis watched Serge and the shambling figure of the old man disappear into the darkness, and then, ruefully enough, walked home. It would be difficult, he thought, to persuade his wife to make light of old Lawrie’s foibles.
“I shall never be able,” he said to himself, “to make her see that Annette has married the son and not the father.”
Indeed, when he told his wife of that night’s adventure—and she kept him at it until half-past four in the morning—it became very clear to him that not Annette’s secrecy nor her highhandedness nor her want of faith in her parents was one-half so bitter to her as the fact that Bennett was, with natural inadvertence, his father’s son.
[XXV
LAWRIEAN PHILOSOPHY]
| I now mean to be serious—it is time. | ||
| DON JUAN. | ||
MEANWHILE Serge and old Lawrie became so interested in each other that they walked far into the night. It was Serge who opened the conversation:
“I gather that you will be charged with drunkenness and obscene language.”