"Yes, yes, I suppose so."
And the lamps were brought in. Then came the tea-tray, placed by Kate on a large table many paces from the fire; womanless Watermead was lacking in the small elegancies of modern life, but now that would soon be remedied, so the younger Carden told himself with a slight, happy smile.
Very deliberately, and asking no questions as to milk or sugar, for well he knew the tastes of his father and of his father's friend, he poured out two cups of tea, and turning, advanced, a cup balanced in each steady hand.
But halfway up the room he stopped for a moment, arrested by the sound of his father's voice—
"Theo, my boy, I want to ask you something."
The mode of address had become of late years a little unusual, and there was a note in Thomas Carden's accents which struck his son as significant—even as solemn.
"Yes, father?"
"Did you not tell me this morning that you had never met Jarvice?"
The one onlooker, hatchet-faced Major Lane, suddenly leaned a little forward.
He was astonished at his old friend's extraordinary and uncalled-for courage, and it was with an effort, with the feeling that he was bracing himself to see something terrible take place, that he looked straight at the tall, fine-looking man who had now advanced into the circle of light thrown by the massive Argand lamps.