e
subject would be courting failure. His veiled old eyes suddenly lighted
up, and he turned to glance over his shoulder.

"Yes," he said, with a strange hesitation, "yes--you are kind. Of course
I am interested. I wonder," he went on, with a sudden change of manner,
"I wonder how much you know?"

His unsteady hand was resting on her gloved fingers, and he blinked at
it as if wondering how it got there.

Jocelyn did not seem to notice.

"I know," she answered, "that you have had a difference of opinion--but
no one else knows. You must not think that Mr. Meredith has spoken of
his private affairs to any one else. The circumstances were exceptional,
and Mr. Meredith thought that it was due to me to give me an
explanation."

Sir John looked a little puzzled, and Jocelyn went on rather hastily to
explain

"My brother and Mr. Meredith were at Eton together. They met somewhere
up the Coast, and my brother asked Mr. Meredith to come and stay. It
happened that Maurice was away when Mr. Meredith arrived, and I did not
know who he was, so he explained."

"I see," said Sir John. "And you and your brother have been kind to my
boy."

Somehow he seemed to have forgotten to be cynical. He had never known
what it is to have a daughter, and she was ignorant of the pleasant
everyday amenities of a father's love. As there is undoubtedly such a
thing as love at first sight, so must there be sympathy at first sight.
For Jocelyn it was comprehensible--nay, it was most natural. This
was Jack's father. In his manner, in everything about him, there were
suggestions of Jack. This seemed to be a creature hewn, as it were, from
the same material, moulded on the same lines, with slightly divergent
tools. And for him--who can tell? The love that was in her heart may
have reached out to meet almost as great a love locked up in his proud
soul. It may have shown itself to him, openly, fearlessly, recklessly,
as love sometimes does when it is strong and pure.

He had carefully selected a seat within the shadow of the curtains; but
Jocelyn saw quite suddenly that he was an older man than she had taken
him to be the evening before. She saw through the deception of the
piteous wig--the whole art that strove to conceal the sure decay of the
body, despite the desperate effort of a mind still fresh and vigorous.

"And I dare say," he said, with a somewhat lame attempt at cynicism,
"that you have heard no good of me?"

But Jocelyn would have none