And then his father turned and looked at him. For a moment he stared, astonished by something in the face of his son, something which he himself could not perhaps define, but something which, with all the sharp instincts of a sensual nature he recognized as strange, which had little to do with either himself or Emma. And then, perhaps because the astonishment had upset him, the meeting fell flat. The exuberance flowed out of Jason Downes. It was almost as if he were afraid of his son—this son who, unlike either himself or Emma, was capable of tragedy and suffering. His eyes turned aside from the burning eyes of his son.
“Well, Philip,” he said, with a wild effort at hilarity, “here’s your Pa ... back again.”
Philip shook hands with him, and then a silence fell between them.
But it was Jason Downes who dominated the family gathering. Philip, silent, watched his father’s spirits mounting. It seemed to him that Jason had set himself deliberately to triumph over his dour, forbidding brother-in-law, and to impress his own son. It was as if he felt that his son had a poor opinion of him, and meant to prove that he was wrong in his judgment.
He told the whole story of the voyage out, of his fall down a companionway, and the strange darkness that followed. Once more he bowed his head and exhibited the scar.
“But,” said the skeptical Elmer sourly, “you always had that scar, Jason. You got it falling on the ice at the front gate.”
“Oh, no. The one before was only a small one. The funny thing was that I struck my head in exactly the same place. Wasn’t that queer? And then when I fell out of the mow I hit it a third time. That’s what the doctors in Sydney said made it so serious.” For a moment, conscious that the embroidering had begun, Emma looked troubled and uneasy.
And Mabelle, with a look of profound speculation, asked, “And what if you hit it a fourth time? Would that make you lose your memory about Australia?”
Jason coughed and looked at her sharply, and then said, “Well, no one could say about that. If it happened again, it would probably kill me.”
“Well,” said Mabelle, “I must say I never heard a more interesting story ... I never read as interesting a one in any of the magazines ... not even in the Ladies’ Home Journal.”