ut we
grow forgetful as our feet weary of the path of life."

Yet I remember thinking that few people looked less weary than my father
as he stood there watching me. The primroses, it seemed, had afforded
pleasant footing.

I believe he read my thoughts, for it seemed to me that for an instant
genuine amusement was written in his glance, but there were few genuine
emotions he allowed free play.

"Perhaps," he suggested pleasantly, "it would interest you to know why
I have returned to these rather rigorous and uncongenial surroundings. If
not, I beg you to be frank again, Henry. There's nothing that I dread
more than being stupid."

"Sir," I objected, "I told you I was curious."

"To be sure you did," he admitted. "Can it be possible that I am becoming
absent-minded? Henry, I am going to tell you something very flattering.
Can you believe it? It is largely on your account that I consented to
revisit these familiar scenes!"

"No," I said, "I cannot, sir, since you ask me."

My father shrugged his shoulders. "Far be it from me to overstrain your
credulity, my son," he observed blandly. "Let us admit then there was
also some slight factor of expedience--but slight, Henry, almost
negligible, in fact. It happened that I was in a French port, and that
while there I should think of you."

"Sir," I said, "You startle me!"

But he continued, regardless of my interruption.

"And what should be there also, but the _Eclipse_, ready to set for home!
Quite suddenly I determined to sail her back. I, too, was curious, my
son." For a moment his voice lost its bantering note. "Curious," he
continued gravely, "to know whether you were a man like me, or one of
whom I might have reason to be proud.... So here we are, Henry. Who said
coincidence was the exception and not the rule?"

His last words drifted gently away, and in their wake followed an awkward
silence. The logs were hissing in the fire. I could hear the clock in the
hall outside, and the beating of the vines against the window panes. It
was no sound, certainly, that made me whirl around to look behind
me,--some instinct--that was all. There was Brutus, not two feet from my
back, with my father's cloak over his right arm, and my father's sword
held in his great fist.

"Do not disturb yourself, Brutus," said my father. "We are both
gentlemen, more or less, and will not come to blows. My cloak, Brutus.
I am sorry, my son, that we must wait till later in the day to
exc