“Well, well,” interpolated Father Maloney soothingly, “he’ll be within his rights according to those lawyer fellas.”
John gazed sternly before him.
“I don’t believe he has an atom of right,” he announced emphatically.
Again Father Maloney smiled.
“Well, I’ll allow we’re all of us for that way of thinking ourselves. But private opinion has never overridden the law yet, without proof in the plainest black and white to back it up.”
John heaved a portentous sigh.
Here, at least, was fact indisputable. Matters for the present inhabitants of Delancey Castle were at a deadlock, a deadlock of the tightest and most emphatic kind. There was no denying that a stoic philosophy was the only course open to them.
But stoic philosophy on such a matter! How was any living human creature possessed of a drop of warm tingling blood in his veins to encompass such a state of being? He saw the trio as they had come towards him in the August sunshine that morning,—the girl tall, graceful, breathing vitality, temperament; the merest casual observer must have felt her extraordinary capacity for feeling things intensely. Oh, it was no imagination on his part, imagination fed by the white light of idealism with which he had surrounded her. Verily was there no imagination on his part. She would suffer in every fibre of her being. It would be to her like tearing her heart from her. And she would suffer smiling, he knew that. That’s where the pain would be the more intense. Those who can bedew a wound with tears bring easing to its agony. And he told himself she would never shed one tear. He knew he wasn’t being sentimental. It was the hard bed-rock truth.
And the boys too! Antony, gay, debonair, valiant little champion! Michael, a mere clinging, cuddlesome baby! And there was Delancey Castle before him in the sunlight.
Of course he didn’t know the place, he was perfectly aware of that fact, but imagination could well make up for lack of knowledge. In imagination he saw the gardens, the terraces, the old grey walls, the dark interior lit by diamond-paned casement windows; he saw the blend of harmonious colours; he smelt the old-time smell of century-mellowed oak and leather, the fragrant scents of lavender and pot-pourri. And it was this—this absolutely perfect and fitting frame for that adorable trio (he had forgotten Lady Mary for the moment) that was to be snatched from them, and made the frame for a modern, hustling, nasal-voiced American.