He paused, and there was a slight trembling of the lip.
"Besides," he went on in another tone, "it has been always so. Since our childhood—my brother's and mine—there has not been much paternal tenderness wasted on me. I can hardly expect it now."
"Surely that must be a morbid fancy," Greta said in a distressed tone. The light was dying out of her eyes. She made one quick glance downward to where Hugh Ritson's infirm foot trailed on the road, and then, in an instant of recovered consciousness, she glanced up, now confused and embarrassed, into his face.
She was too late; he had read her thought. A faint smile parted her lips; and the light of his own eyes was cold.
"No; not that," he said; "I ask no pity in that regard—and need none. Nature has given my brother a physique that would shame a Greek statue, but he and I are quits—perhaps more than quits."
He made a hard smile, and she flushed deep with shame of having her thought read.
"I am sorry if I conveyed that," she said, slowly. "It must have been quite unwittingly. I was thinking of your mother. She is so good and tender to everybody. Why, she is the angel of the country-side. Do you know what name they've given her?"
Hugh shook his head.
"Saint Grace! Parson Christian told me—it seems it was my own dear mother who christened her."
"Nevertheless, there has not been much to sweeten my life, Greta," he said.