“He knows very well,” said Rowland. “Oh, he knows very well that I will never have him arrested or do anything to disgrace my own name. It’s cheap, cheap all that bravado about waiting till I send to take him; he might wait till doomsday, as he well knows. Hold your tongue, Evelyn. It’s well your part to defend him, when he had the grace to say it was your invention.”
“Poor boy, poor boy! he did not know what he was saying.”
“Are you so sure of that? He knew what he was saying, every word. He’s a bold hand—it’s a superior way when the artist can do it—I’ve seen the thing before. Injured pride, and virtue—oh, virtue rampant! That never had a thought, nor could understand what wickedness meant. I have seen it before. And cheap, cheap all yon about waiting till I sent the policeman, when he knows I would not expose my name, not for more than he’s worth a thousand times over. Worth! he’s worth nothing; and my name, my name that is known over two continents—and more! That’s what you would call irony, isn’t it?” said Rowland, with his harsh laugh. “Irony! I’m not a man of much reading, but I’ve seen it in books. Irony!—a name known over half the world; though, perhaps, I shouldn’t be the man to say it. And forged! forged by the man’s own son that made it.”
“James, for God’s sake! It was not Archie. I believe every word he said.”
“That the whole thing was your invention?” said Rowland. “That’s what he said; the rest was rubbish, I remember that. And you believe every word? You are a fool, like most women—and many men too. That old sage, as ye call him, was right, though people cry out. Mostly fools! It was said before him though. Men walk in a vain show, and disquiet themselves in vain. They lay up riches, and know not who is to gather them. Was there ever such a fool as me to keep thinking of my boy, my little callant, as I thought, and never once to remember that he was growing up into a low-lived lout all the time.”
“Archie is not so,” said Evelyn. “He is not so; his faults are on the outside. He did not do this. I never believed he did it. James, you will never have been a fool till now if you let the boy go.”
“Bah! he has no intention of going. You take the like of that in earnest. He will go to his bed and sleep it off, and then—to-morrow’s a new day. I am dead-tired myself,” said Rowland, stretching his arms; “as tired as a dog. I’ll sleep till one, though I’ve had enough to murder sleep. No, no, he’ll not go; yon’s all cheap, cheap, because he knows I will do nothing against him. You are a fine creature, Evelyn, but you are no wiser than the rest. Good-night, my dear, I am going to bed.”
“Without a word of comfort to him, James?”
“Comfort! he wants no comfort. And if he did,” said Rowland, with a smile of misery, “it would be hard to come to me for it, who have none to give. If you know anybody that has that commodity to part with, send them to that boy’s father,—send them to the man that has had the heart taken out of him. I am going to my bed.”
He went slowly upstairs, and then, for the first time, Evelyn saw the butler, Saunders, within hearing, though busily employed, with one or two subordinates, in putting out the lights and closing the shutters. She watched her husband, with his slow, unelastic step, going one by one up the long flight of steps. He had never learned to subdue his energetic step, and take them less than two together before. She was almost glad to see those signs of exhaustion. The fervour of his passion had dropped. He would, perhaps, turn aside, she thought, to Archie’s room, and would understand his son, and the two might meet heart to heart at last.