"So far as I'm concerned, it's not so bad as you think. You needn't pity me, you know. It's just as well that we should have met--after twenty-seven years."
"She knew I was your father before I came. And, I say, Brook--she's forgiven me at last."
His voice was low and unsteady, and he resolutely kept his back turned.
"She's one of the best women that ever lived," he said. "Your mother's the other."
There was a long silence, and neither changed his position. Brook watched the back of his father's head.
"You don't mind my saying so to you, Brook?" asked the old man, hitching his shoulders.
"Oh--well--there's no reason, I suppose. Gad! I wish--I suppose I'm crazy, but I wish to God you could marry the girl, Brook! She's as good as her mother."
Brook said nothing, being very much astonished, as well as disturbed.
"Only--I'll tell you one thing, Brook," said the voice at the window, speaking into space. "If you do marry her--and if you treat her as I treated her mother--" he turned sharply on both heels and waited a minute--"I'll be damned if I don't believe I'd shoot you!"
"I'd spare you the trouble, and do it myself," said Brook, roughly.
They were men, at all events, whatever their faults had been and might be, and they looked at the main things of life in very much the same way, like father like son. Another silence followed Brook's last speech.
"It's settled now, at all events," he said in a decided way, after a long time. "What's the use of talking about it? I don't know whether you mean to stay here. I shall go away this afternoon."
Sir Adam sat down again in his low easy chair, and leaned forward, looking at the pattern of the tiles in the floor, his wrists resting on his knees, and his hands hanging down.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "Let us try and look at it quietly, boy. Don't do anything in a hurry. You're in love with the girl, are you? It isn't a mere flirtation? How the deuce do you know the difference, at your age?"
"Gad!" exclaimed Brook, half angrily. "I know it! that's all. I can't live without her. That is--it's all bosh to talk in that way, you know. One goes on living, I suppose--one doesn't die. You know what I mean. I'd rather lose an arm than lose her--that sort of thing. How am I to explain it to you? I'm in earnest about it. I never asked any girl to marry me till now. I should think that ought to prove it. You can't say that I don't know what married life means."