Like his father, the heir of Withington Chase was tall and slender and as upright as a dart. He had the same aquiline, high-bred cast of features, but in his case there was lacking that expression of hauteur and domineering pride, which to a certain extent marred those of the elder man.
Sir Gilbert’s eyes in colour were a cold bluish-grey, and, though not really small, had the appearance of being so owing to their being so deep set under his heavy brows and to his habit of contracting his lids when addressing himself to anyone. Alec’s hazel eyes, inherited from his mother, were large, clear, and open as the day. The baronet’s lips under his white moustache were thin and hard-set, and his rare smile was that of a cynic and a man who loved to find food for his sardonic humour in the faults and follies of his fellow-creatures. His son’s mouth, if betraying a touch of that weakness which as often as not is the result of an overplus of good-nature, was yet an eminently pleasant one, while his smile was frankness itself. His cheeks were a little more sunken than they ought to have been at his age, and there were dark half-circles under his eyes, which seemed to hint at late hours and mornings that bring a headache. His hair, which he wore short and parted in the middle, was in colour a dark reddish-brown, as were also his short pointed beard and small moustache.
“And to what, sir, am I indebted for the honour of a visit at this untimely hour?” inquired Sir Gilbert in his most freezing accents, as his coldly critical eyes took in his son from head to foot.
Alec coloured for a moment and bit his lip, as if to keep down some rising emotion. Then, in a voice of studied calmness, he said, “Perhaps, sir, I may be permitted to take a seat; for, in point of fact, I am dead tired, and have much to say to you.”
The baronet waved his son to a chair, and took another himself some distance away.
“I am here to-night, father, to make a confession.”
“I presumed as much the moment I set eyes on you.”
“I am afraid you will term it a very disgraceful confession.”
“I have not much doubt on that point,” responded the baronet grimly. “Disgrace and you seem to have gone hand in hand for a long time past.”
“Folly, but not disgrace, father. At the worst——”