"Yes. I've thought about it. I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid Aunt Clare won't want to stay. I don't see what's to be done. I haven't told her yet——"
Robin saw at once that he must choose his future; it was to be his aunt or his father. His aunt with all those twenty years of faithful service behind her, his aunt who had done everything for him—or his father whom he had known for three weeks. But he had no hesitation; there was now no question it was his father for ever against the world!
"I'm sorry," he said slowly. "Perhaps there will be some arrangement. Poor Aunt Clare! Did you—tell grandfather?"
"No. I wanted to, but I had no opportunity. But he knows—I am sure that he knows."
Their thoughts passed to the old man. It was almost as if he had been there in the room with them, and they felt, curiously, as though he had at that moment handed over the keys of the House. For an instant they saw him; his eyes like diamonds, his wrinkled cheeks, his crooked fingers—and then his laugh. "Harry, my boy, you'll do."
"It's almost as if he was here," said Robin. He turned round and put his hand in his father's.
"I know he's pleased," he said.
And so it was during the next week, through the funeral, and the gathering of relatives and the gradual dispersing of them again, and the final inevitable seclusion when the world and the relations and the dead had all joined in leaving the family alone. The gathering of Trojans had shown, beyond a doubt, that Harry was quite fitted to take his place at the head of the family. He had acted throughout with perfect tact and everything had gone without a hitch. Many a Trojan had arrived for the funeral—mournful, red-eyed Trojans, with black crape and an air of deferential resignation that hinted, also, at curiosity as regards the successor. They watched Harry, ready for anything that might gratify their longing for sensational failure; a man from the backwoods was certain to fail, and their chagrined disappointment was only solaced by their certainty of some little sensation in the announcement of his surprising success.
Of course, Clare had been useful; it was on such an occasion that she appeared at her best. She was kind to them all, but at the same time impressed the dignity of her position upon them, so that they went away declaring that Clare Trojan knew how to carry herself and was young for her years.
The funeral was an occasion of great ceremony, and the town attended in crowds. Harry realised in their altered demeanour to himself their appreciation of the value of his succession, and he knew that Sir Henry Trojan was something very different from the plain Harry. But he had, from the beginning, taken matters very quietly. Now that he was assured of the affection of the only two people who were of importance to him he could afford to treat with easy acquiescence anything else that Fate might have in store for him. His diffidence, had, to some extent, left him, and he took everything that came with an ease that had been entirely foreign to him three weeks before.