“And why not, sir?”
“Why not!” And Stephen Gore threw himself back again upon the pillows with some of the dramatic action that he could make appear so natural. “Look you, most obstinate of bulkheads, do you care one brass culverin for the girl? Answer me that.”
There was no need for the answer; my lord galloped on.
“Do you want her to come by her reason and her right mind again? You will protest that you do. Of course. Once more, John, my son, would you like to see your love making mouths at you, gnawing her bib, and perhaps shouting like a fish-wife? You will protest, perhaps, that you do not.”
John Gore stood very still about two paces from his father’s bed. His eyes had a gleam of fierceness in them, for even the possible truth filled him with an impulse to strike the man who uttered it. My lord, who was watching him as a swordsman watches his enemy’s eye, changed his tactics abruptly, and held out an appealing hand like an orator pleading for a reasonable understanding.
“Don’t glare at me, Jack, my boy, as though I had called some one a bona roba. If I have struck hard, it is for your good. Understand that I am not an old fool, and that I have some sense. You are one of those men who love a woman with the same headlong fierceness with which you would board an enemy’s ship. Look at the matter through my eyes. You would only harm the girl by seeing her, for, by God’s providence, she may recover if we rest her as we rest inflamed eyes in the dark. It would only hurt your heart, Jack, if you were to see her as she is now. That is why I am minded to keep temptation out of your way.”
He threw himself back again upon the pillows, for he had been leaning forward like a preacher over a pulpit rail.
“You must trust me, my son. Some day you may thank me for this. I may be pardoned for wishing the best in life for you, for though you may think me a wild old worldling, even a courtier, Jack, may have a heart.”
He spoke with such a burst of manliness and emotion that John Gore bent over his father’s hand.
“You are in the right, sir, and I thank you.”