“It would make me feel easier in my mind, sir,” said Godfrey. “Shall we have her in now and get the thing over?”
“Not yet,” said Baltazar. “There’s another side of the question. By accepting your father’s house as your natural home, you are giving a very human, though faulty being, the very greatest happiness he has ever known in his life. By refusing, you would destroy something that there is no power in the wide world to replace. I don’t deserve any gratitude for being your father; but, after all, you’re my son—and I’m very proud of it. And all I have, not only in my house but in my heart, is yours.” He lit a match. “Just yours,” said he, and the breath of the words blew the match out.
When Godfrey next met Marcelle, he told her of this.
“What the devil could a fellow do,” said he, “but feel a worm and grovel?”
Another thing that added greatly to Baltazar’s happiness was Godfrey’s attitude towards Quong Ho during the vacations, when the young Chinaman was also a member of the household.
“I like the beggar,” said Godfrey. “He’s so tactful; always on tap when one wants him, and never in the way when one doesn’t. And his learning would sink a ship.”
Quong Ho, for his part, sat at the feet of the young English officer and with pathetic earnestness studied him as a model of English vernacular and deportment, and at the same time sucked in from him the whole theory of the art of modern warfare. He had a genius for assimilating knowledge. With the amused aid of Lady Edna Donnithorpe and Burke, he acquired prodigious familiarity with the inter-relationships of the great English families. At Baltazar’s dinner-table he absorbed modern political thought like a sponge. It was during the Easter vacation that he more especially determined to assume the perfect Englishman. Dr. Sheepshanks, towards the end of term, had made him an astonishing proposition. A mathematician of his calibre, said he, would be wasted in China. Why should Mr. Ho not contemplate, as Fellow and Professor, identification of himself with Cambridge? The war had swept away all possible contemporary rivals. It was in his power to attain in a few years not only a brilliant position in the University, but in the European world of pure science. Sheepshanks had also written in the same strain to Baltazar. And when Quong Ho modestly sought his master’s advice, Baltazar vehemently supported Sheepshanks.
“Of course you’ll stay. Weren’t those my very words at the hospital at Water End? Another time perhaps you’ll believe me.”
“For many years have I been convinced of the infallibility of your judgment,” said Quong Ho. “I shall also never forget,” he added, “that I am merely the clay which you have moulded.”
“I’m beginning to think,” cried Baltazar, “that I’m not your friend Dr. Rewsby’s colossal ass after all.”