A flush rose in Skelton’s dark face. That early triumph had been the bugbear of his whole life.
“I regard that as a very crude performance,� he said curtly. “It happened to have a peculiar aptness—it struck a particular conjunction. That was the real reason of its success.�
“Then do something better,� cried old Tom.
“I hope to, some day,� answered Skelton.
They were sitting in the embrasure of the library window. It was in a glorious mid-summer, and the trees wore their greenest livery.
The bright pink masses of the crape myrtle trees glowed splendidly, and at the foot of the large lawn the broad, bright river ran laughing in the sun. The yellow noonday light fell directly upon Skelton’s face—his olive complexion, his clear-cut features; there was not an uncertain line in his face. His lean, brown, sinewy hand rested on the arm of his chair. Old Tom, facing him, was a complete contrast—a keen-eyed man, for all he was a country squire, his fresh, handsome old face shining above his ruffled shirt-front and nankeen waistcoat.
“You’ve got a pretty good array of literary fellows about you,� said old Tom, waving his stick around the library, which not even the July sun could make bright, but which glowed with the sombre beauty that seems to dwell in a true library.
“Yes,� answered Skelton, “but I have an old fellow that is worth all the books to me—Bulstrode; he is a Cambridge man—carried off honours every year without turning a hair, and was classed as a wonder. But, you know, when God makes a genius he spoils a man. That’s the way with Bulstrode. He’s a perfectly worthless dog as far as making a living and a respectable place in society goes. He is simply a vulgarian pumped full of knowledge and with the most extraordinary powers of assimilation. He can’t write—he has no gift of expression whatever. But I can give him ten words on a slip of paper, and in half an hour he can give me every idea and every reference upon any possible subject I demand. He is not a bad man; on the contrary, he has a sort of rude honour and conscience of his own. He refused orders in the English Church because he knew himself to be unfit. Besides looking after my books, he is tutor to Lewis Pryor, the son of an old friend and tutor of mine, the Rev. Thomas Pryor.�
Skelton brought all this out in his usual calm, easy, man-of-the-world manner. At that moment the boy passed across the lawn very close to the window, where he stopped and whistled to his dog. Never were two pairs of eyes so alike as Skelton’s and this boy’s. Old Tom, turning his glance from the boy to Skelton, noticed a strange expression of fondness in Skelton’s eyes as he looked at the boy.
“A very fine-looking youngster,� said old Tom. “What are you going to do with him?�