"Then you don't remember me, bless my soul, you don't remember me, my name is Gowerhurst!"
"I remember your Lordship perfectly!"
"My dear fellow, I am delighted to see you, it quite takes me back. Come, come, we must have a long talk, a long talk together, eh? How's the world been treating you? Well, I hope, if I can be of service to you, command me! By George, Harold, I always had a sneaking affection for you!"
"You managed to hide it very cleverly, my Lord, ten years ago!
"Ha, ha! Had to, you know, had to! Doting father, that sort of thing, couldn't let my little girl make a bad match! Hang it, if I'd been a rich man, ha, ha, I wouldn't have stood in your way, but I wasn't; I was, and am, come to that, doosid poor, and a father's feelings, Harold, my boy, as you'll know when you are a father yourself, unless——"
"I am not married!" said Scarsdale quietly.
"No, no, quite right. Well as I was saying, a father must consider his child. I may have seemed hard, a little hard perhaps, to you that day, I remember it perfectly well, but I liked you, my dear fellow, all the time my heart was bleeding for you, bleeding, sir! I said to myself, can I, dare I? No, by George, I can't and daren't! I can't see my girl scrubbing her own doorstep and—and turning her dresses and making her own bonnets—I can't think of it! So I nerved myself to be stern, nerved myself, Harold, and all the time my heart bled for you, my dear lad!"
"I remember very well," Scarsdale said quietly, "that you on that occasion called me a cunning, scheming, blackguardly young adventurer, who had dared to presume to look far too high, and you were right, as to the last, my lord, but not as to the first. For I was not cunning or scheming, I—I loved her, worshipped her and forgot everything else——"
"By George! and so you did, so you did! But I was her father, I had to consider ways and means, eh? You'd do the same yourself, you'd have to! But we can't talk here!"
"I am with Sir Andrew Molyneux, an old friend of my father."