"I’ve come to see you about that boy of mine," he said bluntly.
"You mean—Robert?" asked Cary slowly, and for lack of something to say.
"He’s a good enough kind of a chap—" Cary suppressed a smile, remembering how the old man adored him, "but he’s a bit hot-headed and reckless, and he’s—mad over you, and—" he broke off. It seemed to him almost as though he was disloyal to the boy.
"And you hope he won’t do anything rash—is that it?" There was a trace of indignation in her voice.
"Jove! no, child. I haven’t come to plead for him, but to ask you to be careful."
"I don’t understand you," said Cary, the hot flush not fading.
"There! You must not be offended. You know the boy is the apple of my eye, but he isn’t faultless. He has got good stuff in him if he is only moulded right, but there would be the very devil to pay—I beg your pardon—if he was ever thwarted in anything he’d set his stubborn mind on."
Trevelyan’s father rose and crossed over to the window and stood there looking out on the lengthening English twilight. His son’s face as it had looked years ago as a baby, rose before him, but the baby had reproachful eyes.
"He’s brave and he’s strong and he’s every inch a soldier; but a woman, child, needs gentleness as well as strength."
The soft dim twilight crept into the room; passed the rigid form of the old soldier at the window and stole onward to the chair in which the girl sat motionless. The outline of her figure and the whiteness of her half averted cheek, showed vaguely through the gloom.
"Thank you," she said, and the unconscious dignity in her voice touched the old warrior at the window strangely. "It was good of you to think of me so kindly, even though it is not deserved and—not necessary."
After a little Trevelyan’s father turned, and came toward the shadowy standing figure.
"I understand," he said; and then: "Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Cary, gently, but she did not offer to shake hands.
Half an hour later the Captain came in. The kettle was not singing, nor the curtains drawn, nor his chair rolled up in its accustomed place, with his easy slippers near by, and the red lamp was unlighted.
Cary rose from the big chair that Trevelyan’s father had occupied, and came slowly forward.