Mrs. Hanbury shook her head deprecatingly and smiled. "I am afraid you are as ardent in your estimate of my family pretensions to lineage as you were long ago in your hatred of kings and princes."
"But I have always been true to you, mother!" he said in that wonderful, irresistible, meltingly affectionate voice; he took her hand and kissed it reverentially.
"Yes, my son. Always." As his head was bent over her hand she laid her hand on his thick dark curly hair.
"My mother," he murmured, when he felt her touch.
Her eyes filled and shone with tears. She made an effort, commanded herself, and as her son sat back on his chair, went on: "You know when your father went into business there was no necessity of a money kind for his doing so. The Hanburys have had plenty of money always, never lands, as far as I know, but money always. They were not a very old family as far as I have heard. This was a point on which your father was reticent. At all events he went into business in the City, as you are aware, and there made a second fortune."
"Well, mother, I am not at all ashamed of our connection with business or the City," said the young man pleasantly.
"Nor am I, John, as you know. When I married your father, none of my people said, at all events to me, that I disgraced my family or degraded my blood. Your father was in business in Fenchurch Street then. My family had known your father all his life. Our marriage was one purely of inclination, and was most happy. Your father was a simple, intelligent, kind-hearted gentleman, John, and as good a husband and father as ever breathed."
"Indeed, mother, I am quite sure of that. I still feel raw and cold without him," said the young man gravely.
"And I shall never get over his loss. I never forget it for one hour of any day. But I am growing talkative in my age like all old people," she said, drawing herself up and laughing faintly. "I am sure I have no reason for saying it, but I fancy the paper your father left with me for you, is in some way connected with the business, or the reason which made him go into business. He gave it to me a few days before he died, and when he knew he was dying. He gave it to me after saying a great deal to me about business, after arranging his other business affairs. He said he did not like you to take so much interest in politics, but that he supposed he must not try to foretell your future. That there was such a thing as going too far in any cause, and that if ever you showed any disposition to put your extreme views in practice, I was to give you this paper. 'In fact, Amy,' said he, 'if our dear boy goes into public life at the popular side, give him this paper; it may be the means of moderating his ardour; but do not give it to him until he is over twenty-one. He will have, I think, no need of it if he keeps quiet until he is thirty. If his mind takes the other bend and he shows any sympathy with any reactionary party in Europe, any party that wants to unsettle things as they now are, destroy this on your peril. If you think he is devoted only to English Radicalism, give him the paper; if he mixes himself up with any Republican party on the Continent, give him the paper. But if he shows sympathy with any pretender on the Continent, burn the paper, Amy, as you love your boy, and bury the ashes of it too.' Those were his very words. What they mean or refer to I do not know." Her face had grown paler.
"And you never read the paper?"