"Mediterranean. Yacht. Partridges."
"Of course. Do you stay in London long?"
And so on. Playing with the talk, and postponing the inevitable, Harry learned where everybody had been, and who was engaged, and who was married, and how one or two had joined the majority since his departure. He also heard the latest scandal, and the current talk, and what had been done at the club, and who had been blackballed, with divers small bits of information about people and things. And he took up the talk in the old manner, and fell into the old attitude of mind quite naturally, and as if there had been no break at all. Presently the clock pointed to one, and Lord Jocelyn rose.
"We will talk again to-morrow, Harry, my boy, and the day after to-morrow, and many days after that. I am glad to have you back again." He laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder.
"Do not go just yet," said Harry, blushing and feeling guilty, because he was going to inflict pain on one who loved him. "I cannot talk with you to-morrow."
"Why not?"
"Because—sit down again and listen—because I have made up my mind to join my kith and kin altogether, and stay among them."
"What? Stay among them?"
"You remember what you told me of your motive in taking me. You would bring up a boy of the people like a gentleman. You would educate him in all that a gentleman can learn, and then you would send him back to his friends, whom he would make discontented, and so open the way for civilization."
"I said so—did I? Yes: but there were other things, Harry. You forget that motives are always mixed. There was affection for my brave sergeant and a desire to help his son; there were all sorts of things. Besides, I expected that you would take a rough kind of polish only—like nickel, you know, or pewter—and you turned out real silver. A gentleman, I thought, is born, not made. This proved a mistake. The puddle blood would show, I expected, which was prejudice, you see, because there is no such thing as puddle blood. Besides, I thought you would be stupid and slow to pick up ideas, and that you would pick up only a few; supposing, in my ignorance, that all persons not 'born,' as the Germans say, must be stupid and slow."