‘What more can I do, Phil, that I have not done?’
‘Nothing, sir!’
‘Then why do you not love me?’
‘Because I cannot trust you—never have and never can,—though ’tis brutal of me to say so.’
‘I think you may go, Philip,’ said his father. He did not speak angrily, nor indeed did he feel any anger at Phil. But the end had come. His last chance for love in this world had failed. He had dreaded this for long. Year by year, as Phil grew older, the separation between them had been gradually widening, an estrangement which the very similarity of their natures, in some respects, seemed to emphasise. Now the breach was open. And Phil had, without doubt, the right of the matter. ‘I scarce know how I looked that he should trust me,’ thought the unhappy man, ‘but I have renounced so much for the boy’s sake,—I have renounced marriage even, lest another son should supplant him; and I doubt if Phil hath ever realised all this, else surely he had not spoken with such cruelty to-night. For the rest of it, youth is sharp to notice, and, when I consider, do I ever speak or act straightly now? Once I did surely? I cannot now. My whole nature leans sidewise, like the tower of Pisa, toppling but still standing. . . . I’m rotten through and through, and Phil knows it,—and—— Oh, forsaken, forsaken!’
He sat forward with his head bent on his clasped hands.
‘A sword shall pierce thine own heart,’ he said.
CHAPTER XXVII
After the plain speaking which had passed between Richard Meadowes and his son, a readjustment of their relationships seemed necessary. It was not possible for them to keep up the former pretence of amity, yet Meadowes was anxious that no hint of their differences should reach the outside world. He called Philip to him one day and explained the case to him.
‘I would not have all the world know how it fares betwixt us, Phil,’ he said. ‘I had rather keep that bitter knowledge to myself; but things being as they are, ’twill be better for us now to live apart,—the one at Fairmeadowes, the other in town. I purpose after this date giving over the house in St. James’ Square to you, while I reside myself at Fairmeadowes. I care no longer for the amusements of the town.’