Edward Penton went on with another wave of his hand. It was not so much his new position (though as a matter of fact he felt that), but the change in all things, and the confused absorbing sentiment of all that had happened which made his companion disagreeable to him, like a presuming stranger. He himself was as a man in a dream. As he came through those rooms again they too were changed. They were now his. All that foolish idea of having nothing more to do with them was past forever. They were now his. He walked through them with the step of the master, thinking involuntarily how this and that must be changed. The house had become to him a place no longer to be judged on its merits as suitable or unsuitable for the habitation of his family, but one to be adapted, arranged, borne with as being his own. Everything had changed—himself and his surroundings, his future, his place in the world, and the mind with which he approached that place. In the library, to which he returned as the room in which he was most likely to meet some one to whom he could talk, he found Russell Penton, and the two men instinctively shook hands with each other as if they had not met before.
“I hope there was no more suffering,” Edward Penton said.
“None. He never recovered consciousness, but just slept away. No man could have wished a calmer end. He has had a long life, and his dying has been very peaceful. What more could a man desire?”
Edward Penton bowed his head, and they stood together for a moment saying nothing, paying their tribute not only to the life but to the state of affairs that was over. They both felt it, the one as much as the other. To Russell Penton it was, if not actual, at least possible freedom, especially now that the Penton arrangement was over. He grieved for his father-in-law, if not painfully, yet sincerely. He was a venerable figure, a sustaining personality gone out of his life. He had so much less to do and to think of, which was in its way a sorrowful thought. But with that came the secret exhilaration of the consciousness that now perhaps the guidance of his own life would be his own. He would not oppose Alicia nor endeavor to coerce her; that would be the greatest mistake, he felt; but it was likely enough that in her softened state she would of her own accord subdue herself to this. At least, he hoped so, and it spread before him the prospect of a new existence. After they had stood together silent for a minute, Russell Penton spoke.
“I think I ought to say this,” he said. “Whatever Alicia may feel, and I fear she will be disappointed, I am myself much more pleased, Penton, that things should be as they are.”
“I thought that was your feeling all along.”
“Yes, they both knew it was; but I have always abstained from saying anything. My first desire was that she should as much as possible have what she liked best. She has well deserved it at my hands.”
Edward Penton said nothing on this subject. It was not one in which he could deliver his opinion. “It is a great house,” he said, “and a great responsibility for a man with a large family like me.”
“You will find it perhaps easier than you think; everything is in very perfect order. Alicia would like me to tell you, Penton, that though it was too late to be added as a codicil, her father’s wish is sacred to her, and that it shall be as he desired about your boy.”
“My boy! do you mean Wat? What has he to do with it?” Edward Penton cried, half affrighted. He who had so nearly parted with the birthright himself, he was a little jealous of any interference now: and especially of this, that the feelings of his son should be brought into account in the matter.