Upon the chair was stretched, in a halfsitting posture, the gigantic frame of a very old man. The grandson looked upon him in silence for a long time, his mind confused with many impressions. The vast shoulders and high, bullet-like head, propped up by pillows in the partial shadow of the hood, seemed vaguely to recall the vision his baby memory had preserved of his own father. But in detail there was no resemblance. Or yes, there were resemblances, but they were blurred almost beyond recognition by the rough touch of time. The face, with its big, harsh features and bushing brows, and its frame of stiff white whiskers under the jaws and chin, had something in it which for an instant the young man seemed to identify; then the unnatural effect of its uniform yellow-clay color drove all thoughts of its human relationships from his mind, and he saw nothing but a meaningless mask. It was as devoid of significance, indeed, as if it had been in a coffin. The eyes were open and they seemed to be fixed upon the distant rolling prospect of hills and forest, but whether they were seeing anything, Christian could not imagine. They certainly had not been turned to include him in their survey. The livid right hand, swaying as the black dog pushed it with its nose, was the only thing about the duke that moved.
“He does not know I am here,” said Christian, at last. He spoke instinctively, with the ceremonious affectation of awe which one puts on in the presence of death. His grandfather hardly impressed him as being alive and still less made any appeal to his sense of kinship. He had expected to be overwhelmed with emotion at the meeting, but he found himself barely interested. His wandering glance chanced to take note of some of the dogs’ faces about the chair. They were all alertly watching him, and the profoundly wise look in their eyes caught his attention. No doubt they were dreadful fools, if the truth could be known, but the suggestion of cultured sagacity in their gaze was extraordinary. He looked back again at his grandfather, and tried to say to himself that he was a great noble, the head of an ancient and proud line, and the actual father of his father—but the effort failed to spur his fancy. He turned to Lord Julius and lifted his brows in wearied interrogation.
“Move round in front of him,” counseled the other. “Get yourself in the range of his eyes.”
Christian obeyed, and, flushing a little with self-consciousness, strove to intercept the aged man’s gaze. There was no change upon the ashen face under the hood to tell him whether he had succeeded or not. The impulse to grimace, to wave his arms about, to compel attention by any wild and violent device, forced him to smile in the midst of his perplexed constraint. He stared for a few moments longer at the gaunt, immovable figure—then shrugged his shoulders, and, stepping over a dog or two, made bold to rejoin Lord Julius.
“I do not see that it is of any use,” he said, with annoyance. “If you wish to go, I am quite ready.”
Lord Julius lifted his brows in turn, and looked at his grand-nephew with curiosity. “I said nothing about going, that I recall,” he began, with an effect of reproof in his tone. But then he seemed to think better of it, and gave an abrupt little laugh. “It isn’t very invigorating, I’m bound to admit,” he confessed, cheerfully enough. “Wait a moment, and I’ll stir him up a bit.”
He bent forward again, with his head at the edge of the hood, and shouted into it: “If you want to see Ambrose’s boy, here he is! If you don’t want to see him, say so, and waste no more of our time!”
To Christian’s surprise, the duke took instant cognizance of this remark. His large face brightened, or at least altered its aspect, into something like animation; his eyes emerged from their cover of lethargy, and looked alive.
“My back is very bad to-day,” he remarked, in a voice which, though it bore the querulous note of the invalid, was unexpectedly robust in volume. “And I cannot make out whether the numbness is passing down below my knee or not.”
Lord Julius nodded, as if confirming to himself some previous suspicion. “I thought as much,” he commented in an aside to the young man. “It’s merely his endearing little way. Have patience, and we’ll draw the badger yet.”