He paused again, and his eyes seemed to pierce Philip’s, as though he would read if each word was burning its way into his brain.
“As I stood there alone, a voice spoke to me as plainly as now I speak to you, and it said: ‘Have done with railing. That which was the elder’s shall be given to the younger. The tree hath grown crabbed and old, it beareth no longer. Behold the young sapling by thy door—I have planted it there. The seed is the seed of the old tree. Cherish it, lest a grafted tree flourish in thy house.’”.... His words rose triumphantly. “Yes, yes, I heard it with my own ears, the Voice. The crabbed tree, that is the main line, dying in me; the grafted tree is the Vaufontaine, the interloper and the mongrel; and the sapling from the same seed as the crabbed old tree”—he reached out as though to clutch Philip’s arm, but drew back, sat erect in his chair, and said with ringing decision: “the sapling is Philip d’Avranche, of the Jersey Isle.”
For a moment there was silence between the two. A strong wind came rushing up the valley through the clear sunlight, the great trees beneath the castle swayed, and the flapping of the tricolour could be heard within. From the window-sill the dove, caught up on the wave of wind, sailed away down the widening glade.
Philip’s first motion was to stand up and say: “I dare not think your Highness means in very truth to make me your kinsman in the succession.”
“And why not, why not?” testily answered the Duke, who liked not to be imperfectly apprehended. Then he added more kindly: “Why not—come, tell me that, cousin? Is it then distasteful?”
Philip’s heart gave a leap and his face flushed. “I have no other kinsman,” he answered in a low tone of feeling. “I knew I had your august friendship—else all the tokens of your goodness to me were mockery; but I had scarce let myself count on the higher, more intimate honour—I, a poor captain in the English navy.”
He said the last words slowly, for, whatever else he was, he was a loyal English sailor, and he wished the Duc de Bercy to know it, the more convincingly the better for the part he was going to play in this duchy, if all things favoured.
“Tut, tut, what has that to do with it?” answered the Duke. “What has poverty to do with blood? Younger sons are always poor, younger cousins poorer. As for the captaincy of an English warship, that’s of no consequence where greater games are playing—eh?”
He eyed Philip keenly, yet too there was an unasked question in his look. He was a critic of human nature, he understood the code of honour, none better; his was a mind that might be wilfully but never crassly blind. He was selfish where this young gentleman was concerned, yet he knew well how the same gentleman ought to think, speak, and act.
The moment of the great test was come.