Usher followed him indoors. Some time later Miss Lanyon came down, having changed her dress for dinner, and leaned against the jamb of the creeper-covered porch and drank in the softness of the summer evening with the country-bred gentlewoman's vague mingling of happiness and regret. She had heard of the engagement. It had made her sad. Why had it not been Sylvester instead of Roderick? She sighed over the grave of her old maid's vicarious romance. A footstep behind her caused her to turn. It was Mr. Usher, buttoning his old frock-coat. His face showed grave benevolence.
“A father lives in his children,” he said, after receiving her reluctant congratulations. “I live in my son.”
The dinner-bell rang.
“I must go,” he continued. “I came to see my old friend on business. He is so good. His time is always at the disposal of his friends.”
“I told Dorothy this evening that he was a saint,” she said.
Usher squeezed her hand impressively.
“He is indeed, Miss Lanyon. He is indeed.”
But Matthew sat in his library chair staring in front of him in agony of spirit. He had yielded. The trace of the writing was there on the fresh blotting-paper before him. The strong man writhed under the humiliation of defeat. The proud, sensitive gentleman was tortured in his Nessus shirt of dishonour. And it comforted him not that it was for his son's sake. He felt as if he had ransomed him at the price of Ella's deliverance to the Minotaur.