"Where's Mama?" he inquired breathlessly, ending up in the library and finding his father alone there.
"Out, I think. What's the matter?"
"Oh, nothing.... A kid licked me.... I wanted something for this finger."
"Well, go upstairs and get that large brown bottle on my wash-stand, and we'll see what we can do about it." Hilary, taking a page out of his own boyhood, guessed that no mere cut finger could have reduced James to such an abject pass. He suspected that his son, who, unlike Harry, was almost morbidly sensitive to appearances and almost never gave way to demonstrations of grief, had augmented the disgrace of being thrashed by allowing himself to be reduced to a state of tears in the presence of his fellows. Some such occurrence only could account for this precipitate rout. One or two further inquiries confirmed this conjecture, and he then prepared to apply, if possible, a balm to his son's mental wound as well as the physical one.
"There," said he, giving a final pull to an unprofessional-looking bandage, composed of an entirely un-antiseptic handkerchief, "that will stay till your mother comes in. Now go and get me that green book on the third shelf and I'll read to you for a while, if you want."
The green book happened to be no less notable a work than "Paradise Lost," and Hilary, turning to the last pages of the twelfth book, read of the expulsion of our sinning forbears from Eden. He read Milton rather well, almost as well, in fact, as he secretly thought he did, and James, though incapable at first of listening attentively or understanding much of anything, was gradually soothed by the solemn music of the lines; by the time his father reached the closing passage he was listening with wide open ears.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
Hilary kept the book open on his knee for a moment after he had finished, and he noticed with interest that James leaned forward with aroused attention to read over the passage again. "Some natural tears—wiped them soon—the world was all before them—" the words sank in on James' mind as his father knew they would, and suggested the thought that the world need not be irrevocably lost through one indiscretion.
Let no one gain from these somewhat extended accounts of Hilary's dealings with his sons an impression to the effect that the boys found a more sympathetic friend in their father than in their mother. As a matter of fact, the exact contrary was true. Like all perfect art, Hilary's successful passages with them bore no trace of the means by which they were brought about, and consequently they did not feel that their father's attitude toward them was inspired by anything like the warm and undisguised affection which pervaded their mother's. Nor, indeed, was it.
James, even in these early days, showed signs of having inherited a fair share of his father's inborn tact in his dealings with his brother. The fraternal relation is always an interesting one to observe, because of its extreme elasticity, combining, as it does, apparently unlimited possibilities for love, hate and indifference. Who ever saw two pairs of brothers that seemed to regard each other with exactly the same feelings? Harry and James certainly did not hate each other, but on the other hand they did not love each other with that passionate devotion that is supposed to characterize the ideal brothers of fancy. Nor could they truthfully be called wholly indifferent to each other; their mutual attitude lay somewhere between indifference and the Castor-and-Pollux-like devotion that the older and less attractive of their relatives constantly tried to instil in their youthful bosoms. They were never bored by each other. James always felt for Harry's superior quickness in all intellectual matters an admiration which he would have died sooner than give full expression to, and Harry, though he frequently scouted his brother's opinions in all matters, had a profound respect for James' clearness and maturity of judgment. But what, more than anything else, kept them on good terms with each other and always, at the last moment, prevented serious ructions, was a way that James had at times of viewing their relation in a detached and impersonal light, and acting accordingly. On such occasions he appeared to be two people; first, the James that was Harry's brother and contemporary, less than two years older than he and subject to the same desires and weakness, and, secondly, the James who stood as judge over their differences and distributed justice to them both with a fair and impartial hand.