“It would be impossible without you, Uncle Matthew,” she said.
He rose with a laugh. “None of us are indispensable, not even the most futile. I'm going to dress. You'll dine here, of course, Syl? And, Ella, tell them to get up some of the '84' Pommery to drink good luck to Syl.”
He walked out of the room with the brisk air of a man thoroughly pleased with life; but outside, in the passage, his face grew sad, and he mounted the stairs to his dressing-room very slowly, holding on to the balusters.
The younger folks remained for a while longer in the library. Sylvester bent forward and broke a great lump of coal with the poker.
“I'm not fit to black his boots, you know, My companionship means much more to him than Dorothy's does to me, and he gives it up without a murmur.”
“And that settles the Dorothy question?” asked Ella, in the direct manner that sometimes embarrassed him.
“Of course it settles it,” he cried warmly. “What a selfish beast you must have thought me!”
“If you didn't love others so warmly, I shouldn't—”
She came to a dead stop because his eyes were full upon her.
“Well?”