“I see,” said Sir John. “And you and your brother have been kind to my boy.”
Somehow he seemed to have forgotten to be cynical. He had never known what it is to have a daughter, and she was ignorant of the pleasant everyday amenities of a father's love. As there is undoubtedly such a thing as love at first sight, so must there be sympathy at first sight. For Jocelyn it was comprehensible—nay, it was most natural. This was Jack's father. In his manner, in everything about him, there were suggestions of Jack. This seemed to be a creature hewn, as it were, from the same material, moulded on the same lines, with slightly divergent tools. And for him—who can tell? The love that was in her heart may have reached out to meet almost as great a love locked up in his proud soul. It may have shown itself to him, openly, fearlessly, recklessly, as love sometimes does when it is strong and pure.
He had carefully selected a seat within the shadow of the curtains; but Jocelyn saw quite suddenly that he was an older man than she had taken him to be the evening before. She saw through the deception of the piteous wig—the whole art that strove to conceal the sure decay of the body, despite the desperate effort of a mind still fresh and vigorous.
“And I dare say,” he said, with a somewhat lame attempt at cynicism, “that you have heard no good of me?”
But Jocelyn would have none of that. She was no child to be abashed by sarcasm, but a woman, completed and perfected by her love.
“Excuse me,” she said sharply; “but that is not the truth, and you know it. You know as well as I do that your son would never say a word against you.”
Sir John looked hastily round. Lady Cantourne had come into the room and was talking to the two young people: Millicent was glancing uneasily over Mr. Grubb's brainless cranium towards them. Sir John's stiff, unsteady fingers fumbled for a moment round his lips.
“Yes,” he said, “I was wrong.”
“He has always spoken of you with the greatest love and respect,” said Jocelyn; “more than that, with admiration. But he very rarely spoke of you at all, which I think means more.”
Sir John blinked, and suddenly pulled himself together with a backward jerk of the arms which was habitual with him. It almost seemed as if he said to himself, as he squared his shoulders, “Come, no giving way to old age!”