Then he again faced Luigi, eyeing him critically and keenly.
“So, sir, I am given to understand that you have been brought up in England, consequently I presume that you speak the English language as well as I do.”
“Scarcely that, I am afraid, sir,” answered Luigi with a glint of his white teeth; “although I pride myself on being more of an Englishman than an Italian.”
“Then you belie your looks,” muttered the old man as he turned abruptly away. He was bitterly disappointed. His secret hope had been to find another Alec, in any case as far as looks were concerned; for of late years the memory of his eldest son (through a reactionary process by no means uncommon when one whom we have treated ill or unjustly is lost to us for ever) had become very dear to him. But in this olive-skinned, black-eyed stripling, with his facile smile and gleaming teeth, he could trace no single trait or feature which served to recall his dead son. Voice, looks, manner, all were radically different; there was no shadow of resemblance anywhere.
“Still, he is my grandson, and for Alec’s sake——” he murmured brokenly under his breath. “It would be altogether unjust to blame the boy, or to treat him in any way differently for what, after all, is no fault of his.”
He had turned to the table and was making a pretence of searching among the papers and books with which it was encumbered for something which he apparently failed to find. Behind his back Giovanna and Luigi exchanged glances of perplexity and dismay. Drawing himself up with a sort of half-shake, as if trying to free himself from some harassing thought, and with a sigh meant for himself alone, Sir Gilbert again faced round.
“Pardon my remissness,” he said with a little gesture of annoyance, on perceiving that both his visitors were still standing, “but it is not every day that one is presented with a grandson. Pray be seated,” he added, and not till they had complied did he find a chair for himself.
He was evidently nonplussed what to say or do next. Although his disappointment was so extreme, and although he felt drawn towards Luigi by no frailest thread of affinity or kinship, he was sternly determined in his own mind that the fullest justice should be done to him, and that his position as the heir of Withington Chase should receive the amplest recognition both at his hands and those of the world at large. Perhaps—and who could say to the contrary?—liking would come in time. Perhaps, although it seemed hard to believe, the boy might gradually win his way to his grandfather’s heart and become unspeakably dear to him.
“Your mother, young sir, tells me that for some time past you have been earning your living as a drawing-master,” resumed Sir Gilbert when the silence had become painful to all three. He could not, just yet, bring himself to address his grandson after any more familiar or affectionate style.
“That is so, sir, and a very poor living I made of it.”