“Listen, John, for what I am saying is very important. You don’t know what I mean now, but sometime you will.” The whisper had grown strained and frayed, but it was still distinct. “I can’t go to the Never-Never Land. But you may sometime. If you ... if you do, and if you find Wishing-House, remember that the men who lived in it ... before you and me ... were gentlemen. Whatever else they were, they were always that. Be ... like them, John ... will you?”
“Yes, father.”
The old gentleman with the eye-glasses had come forward then, hastily.
“Good-night, father—”
He had wanted to kiss him, but a strange cool hush had settled on the room and his father seemed all at once to have fallen asleep. And he had gone out, so carefully, on tiptoe, wondering, and suddenly afraid.
CHAPTER IV
THE TURN OF THE PAGE
John Valiant stirred and laughed, a little self-consciously, for there had been drops on his face.