Baltazar beamed. His quick eyes gathered curious glances from the luncheon party. It was a proud moment, inaugurating a definite parental position. He wrung the young man’s hand cordially. Godfrey explained: “Kinnaird and I were at Winchester and Cambridge together. He’s a classical swell. When the war came it swallowed us up with different mouths.” He turned to his friend. “Where have you been all the time?”
“Gallipoli. Then a soft turn in Egypt. And you?”
“Flanders and France.”
“I’m off to France next week.”
“Let us meet before you go. Where are you to be found?”
They exchanged addresses. On leave-taking:
“I’m proud to have met you, sir,” said Kinnaird. He turned and sat down at his table. Father and son continued their way to the lounge.
“Was that last remark of your friend,” asked Baltazar, “unusual politeness, or did it mean anything?”
“Most of my University friends, sir,” replied Godfrey, “know who my father was.”
“Oh!” said Baltazar, with knit brows. “Oh, indeed! Anyhow it was very polite. Look here, my boy,” he went on, as they halted by a secluded and inviting little table, “I’ve been struck lately by an outward and visible sign of what seems to me to be an inward, invisible grace. When I was your age, having left school and masters behind me, I would have seen anybody damned first before I called them ‘sir’—except royalty, of course. Now I come back into the world as an elderly codger, and both of you young chaps ‘sir’ me punctiliously.”