The hidden note of bitterness stung Paul for the first time to something like anger. He choked it down, however. "Very well indeed, thanks," he said evenly. "I had supper with them last night, and saw Manning off to Cambridge this morning."
"The very newspaper told us that much," said Mr. Kestern, with a gesture towards the Morning Post that lay folded on a side-table. "After the theatre, I understand."
The harshness of the man's voice was too obvious to allow of any further equivocation. Paul moved over to the fireplace, and his mother, seated in an arm-chair, held out a hand appealingly to him.
"Paul, dear," she entreated, "don't anger your father. You know what he feels about the theatre."
"But I've said nothing, mother," cried Paul miserably.
"Nothing!" exclaimed Mr. Kestern, wheeling round on him, no longer able to restrain himself, "nothing! Do you think it is nothing that my boy should write a play? My son, photographed with a stage-manager, appearing—what is your word?—'called' before the curtain! Oh, God, what have I done that my son should come to this!"
"Father, father, don't!" cried Mrs. Kestern. "Of course Paul must take his own place——"
"Mother, you don't know what you say. His own place! But that is the son we gave to God, that is the son of our hopes and prayers, that is the boy for whom we contrived and saved that he might go to college, and now—now, he writes plays! The bitterness is more than I can bear. I have lost my son."
The grim comedy of it was lost on the three of them. Mrs. Kestern burst into tears. "Father, dear," she sobbed, "don't say such terrible things. Oh, I can't bear it!"
Something awoke and flared up in Paul. The thing had come so quickly, with such an appearance of inevitability that he had been taken wholly unawares. He had hoped for a reasonable talk about the theatre, and at least a comfortable agreement to differ. But he had been conscious during the last few minutes of utter helplessness before this incredible attitude, and now the cruel absurdity of it all flamed before him.