"I'd like a word with you in private. Do you mind comin' out of this clackshop into the vest*i*bulee?" Franky went on, quoting his favourite Jimmy Greggson, and with a word to Margot and a glance on Sherbrand's part at Patrine, the two men passed through the swing-doors. Here Franky wheeled, and said with effort:
"This is a bit subsequent! but—if there's time available and the date of my uncle's funeral doesn't happen to be fixed, I should like to say—" He grew furiously red and began to stammer: "My father ... myself ... Dash! how brutally I bungle! But my uncle has a right to—to lie in the family vault with his ancestors. It's at Whins—the Church is in the Castle grounds. I can guarantee that my father—every facility—sympathy—proper respect—" He broke down. Sherbrand answered, now the cooler of the two:
"You are very kind, Lord Norwater. My mother has already received a telegram from Lord Mitchelborough conveying a message to the same effect."
"I engineered that!" thought Franky complacently. But he was fish-dumb. Sherbrand went on:
"She would thank you, as I do, gratefully. But my father—would have preferred to be buried where he died!"
"Good egg! And now there's another thing to get off my chest," said Franky. "You know you stand in for the Viscounty when I succeed my father, or if I get knocked out in this scrap—supposing I should kick without heirs! That being so, suppose you bury the hatchet and lunch with us? Wouldn't in Paris—perhaps you will now? The War seems to rub up old saws like new somehow. That copy-book tag about Blood bein' thicker than water! that's one of the ones I mean. In case my wife got left—do you tumble?"—the ambiguous term was quite expressive—"I'd like to think that you were—would be kind to her!"
"I should certainly—in that case—try to do what I could." A certain physical and mental resemblance showed between these two long-legged, lightly-built, clean-made Sherbrands, standing together talking of grave matters, with candour and simplicity and British avoidance of sentiment and excess of words.
"But,"—Sherbrand found himself yielding to an impulse of confidence in the owner of the brown eyes that were some inches below his own, "this War is my chance! I'm a certified pilot-aviator and constructor and engineer. Perhaps there'll be a chink in the Royal Flying Corps for me—and many another fellow like me—before long—I hope, not very long! For my father's sake as much as for my own, I'm bound to make good—you understand?"
The brown eyes understood. His kindred blood warmed to the look in them.
"He knew—my father knew that he had failed in life through his own fault. He did not resent his brother's attitude. He bore the consequences more or less patiently, and when he died he left the cleansing of his name to me. Not that he was as badly to blame as people thought. He was born without sufficient of the quality called—objectivity. It's the power that keeps a man slogging, slogging in one groove without getting mechanical or stupid, as long as he attain his ends or can serve his country by keeping on. It's indispensable!"—he emphasised the word, his strong blue-grey eyes full on Franky's—"as indispensable as lymph in your inner ear-tubes. Without it you can't keep a level balance—whether you stand, or walk, or fly!"