John Gore’s face darkened perceptibly.
“News?”
“Yes. After all, it may not concern you much—at least—I trust not. We all have our little impulses, our chance inclinations. Do you remember, Jack, something I said to you in this very room the night you fought Phil Pembroke?”
John Gore remembered that something very keenly. His eyes betrayed as much.
“Does it concern Barbara Purcell?”
My lord gave him one look, and then threw the stump of his cigarro into the fire.
“It does, poor child. She has gone stark mad. There’s the blunt truth, Jack. If I have hit you hard, take it in the face like a man—and forget.”
XXII
John Gore asked few questions that night, but went to his room with a silent and impenetrable air that refused to betray any inward bleeding of the heart. His reserve challenged my lord to decide whether the son was really unconcerned, or whether he hid what he might feel beneath a casual surface. For Stephen Gore had spoken with great pathos of this “maid’s tragedy,” and had tempted his son with a display of sympathy to make some sentimental confession of faith.
But John Gore had knocked his pipe out against the hood of the fireplace, pulled off his heavy boots, and pretended that he was sleepy after a forty-mile ride and a good supper. He had taken one of the candles from the table and gone to his room, leaving his father no wiser as to what the son felt or what he knew.