When Kenyon came back into the room it was with his usual imperturbability. He might merely have left it to answer the telephone or interview the man who had come to collect his clothes to be ironed. But his eyes were red. In his own peculiar way he had loved his father and admired him. It was the first time that he had wept since he had been a child.
"Thanks, so much, for waiting, old boy," he said. "I hope you've been smoking, or something."
"No," said Peter; "I have things to think about too."
Kenyon looked about, with a queer little smile. "I was just settling down," he said. "Very decent room, this, isn't it? Well, well, there it is. You never know your luck, eh?"
"The first possible boat. Do you know anything about the sailings? Ah, this paper will have it. I detest the sea and its everlasting monotony and blandness, and the dull-bright propinquity that it forces upon one." He opened the paper and searched among its endless columns for the Shipping News. "Here we are. 'Trans-Atlantic Sailings.' I have a wide choice, I see. There's a White Star and a Cunarder leaving to-morrow at twelve-thirty. The _Olympic_, I see! That's good enough,--if she's not full up. I'll see to it this afternoon. There's sure to be a cabin somewhere at this time of year."
"Thanks, old man. I know you will. And I shall hate going. Well, well!"
Peter picked up a book and put it down again; opened and shut a box of cigarettes and pushed a bowl of flowers nearer the middle of the table. "Do you want any--I mean, can I----?"
Kenyon laid his hand on his friend's square shoulder. "Not this time, Peter, old son. Thanks, awfully. I've had one or two good nights and my pockets are full of dollars. They'll see me home with perfect comfort. Well, here ends my visit to the United States. To-morrow night I shall have left the hospitable Statue of Liberty behind me. But she'll see me again. I'll dash round in the morning and thank your people for their extreme kindness to me. You'll see me off, won't you?"
"Of course. We won't dine to-night. I--I don't feel like it."
"The Earl is dead!" said Kenyon, with a sudden break in his voice. "Long live the Earl!" And he raised his hand above his head.
Not for the first time in his comparatively short life, Nicholas Kenyon was able to put to the test his often boasted power of self-control. It was his creed to accept everything that might happen to him, whether good or bad, with equanimity. It was part of his training to allow nothing to interfere with the routine of his day and the particular scheme that he had worked out for himself. He was, however, utterly unprepared for his father's death. Only the day before he had received a very cheerful and amusing letter from the Earl of Shropshire which had provided him with many quiet chuckles. When the blow came in that sudden fashion it knocked him down and for an hour reduced him to the level of an ordinary human being--of a man who had not specialized in individualism and who did not set the earth revolving round himself as its hub. Shut up in his bedroom he gave way to his real and best emotions, the genuineness of which surprised him. He was a master egotist--a superindividualist--the very acme of selfishness. Therefore, odd as it may seem, he was somewhat ashamed of his deep feeling, because it proved to him that one of the links of his carefully forged chain of philosophy was weak. He defined the word philosopher as one who is profoundly versed in the science of looking after himself.