Sprayed upon between mortification and laughter at the manner of his greeting, George's enthusiasm was a little damped. But its flame was too fierce to be hurt by a shower. Now it roared again. “I've passed!” he cried. “I'm qualified!”
“I tender my felicitations. Accept them. Leave us, Miss Humfray. This is a mighty hour. Take the Rose. Give her cream. Let her with us rejoice.”
Mary raised the cat. She faced about so that she directly shut Mr. Marrapit from his nephew; with her dancing eyes spoke her happiness to her George; passed down the lawn.
Mr. Marrapit drew in the lap he had been making. He sat upright. “Again, accept my felicitations,” he said. “They are yours. Take them.”
With fitting words George took them. Mr. Marrapit continued: “It is a mighty hour. Through adversity we have won to peace, through perils to port, through hurts to harbour.”
“Do not interpose. It is a mighty hour. Let this scene sink into our minds and march with us to the grave. Here upon the lawn we stand. Westward the setting sun. Creeping towards us the lengthening shadows. Between us the horrid discord which has so long reigned no longer stands. It is banished by a holy peace. The past is dead. My trust is ended. The vow which I swore unto your mother I have steadfastly kept. I would nourish you, I declared, until you were a qualified physician. You are a qualified physician. I have nourished you. Frequently in the future, upon a written invitation, I trust you will visit this home in which your youth has been spent. When do you leave?”
The query towards which Mr. Marrapit had been making through his psalm came to George with a startling abruptness that was disconcerting. He had not anticipated it. He jerked: “When do I--leave?”
“Certainly. The hour of your departure, unduly deferred by idleness and waywardness upon which we will not dwell, is now at hand. When does it fall? Not to-night, I trust? A last night you will, I hope, spend beneath my roof. To-morrow, perchance? What are your plans?”
George flamed. “You're in a mighty hurry to get rid of me.”
Mr. Marrapit cast upward his eyes. He groaned:
“Again I am misunderstood. All my life I have been misunderstood.” He became stern. “Ingrate! Is it not patent to you that my desire is not to stand in your way? You have earned manhood, freedom, a charter to wrest money from the world. I might stay you. I do not. I bid you Godspeed.”
