"Yes, yes, I felt I had to. The girl's future troubled me, worried me to death, Harold. How was I to know that you'd come back; how the deuce was I to know that you hadn't married and settled down; how was I to know that you——?"
"That I had succeeded in life and was in a position to offer Kathleen a home?" Scarsdale asked.
"That's it, that's it, begad. The very words I was going to say. How could I know all that? I did not, I saw the chance. Allan Homewood isn't a bad fellow, not a gentleman of course; how could he be with such a father? But quiet and unassuming, decently educated, sensible. I was torn, Harold, torn, I confess now that I thought of you—" the tears came into his lordship's fine eyes, he leaned forward and gripped Scarsdale's hand. "I thought of you, I thought to myself, 'If ever that fine young fellow comes back, what a blow to him, what a blow!' Yet how did I know you were coming back?"
"No, you were not to know." Harold Scarsdale stared out of the window. "I wish, Heaven knows, for many reasons, I had not come back. I might have known that Kathleen could not have waited, yet I watched the papers, I saw no engagement, no marriage announced and I clung to hope, then—" he laughed shortly. "I ought not to be here now, Lord Gowerhurst, it's the weakest, most foolish thing I have ever done, yet you say you wrote and told Kathleen."
"I did, I did, 'pon my honour I did, wrote to her and said I was bringing you down and she wrote and said she'd be delighted to see you."
"Which was very kind and very friendly of her," said Scarsdale with a bitter sneer, "and proves that she doesn't care a hang for me now, and in all probability never did." He laughed again and his lordship, not quite knowing why, laughed too.
Kathleen was waiting, she heard the car wheels, the hoot of the horn as the car swung in through the open gateway. She could do no less to welcome her own father than she had done to welcome Allan's. She hurried out, and descended the steps, there was a smile on her face, her hand was held out, then suddenly she stopped. The smile seemed to set on her face, which had grown rigid, and suddenly very white; the outstretched hand shook and fell to her side.
So for a moment she stood there, wide eyed, conscious of the violent throbbing of her heart.
After—ten years—and so they faced one another again. And the man knew that her father had lied to him and that his coming was all unexpected by her.
But it was only for a moment, just one moment, that was yet enough to betray her to those keen, eager, watchful eyes. Then she came forward, calmly, with an artificial smile on her lips. She took her father's hand, she kissed him, what she said she hardly knew, she touched the other man's hand. She told him that his coming was an unexpected pleasure.