Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/218

 what I desire—you and your job. It is a man's job that matters to him most.

"I have no feeling against your mother—now. All that is dead. The only feeling that I should have against her would be—if—she took you away from your true self and your job. I don't say that she would. But women have powers of persuasion.

"Do what you feel moved to do. If you wish to see her—see her. After all—she is your mother, and was—my wife.

"I do not believe that she can come between us.

"Your letter to me was rather a precious document, Kit. Do you remember the old brown portmanteau?"

Christopher's bacon and eggs grew cold while he read his father's letter. His eyes had a faint mist before them.

His father was a great man. He loved him.

Mrs. Duggan's chauffeur was strapping a trunk to the luggage grid, while she herself stood at a window, still impatiently dallying after three days of waiting for the son who never came. She had expected him, and when he failed to come to her, her expectation had grown more urgent and angry. For she, who never allowed sentiment to interfere with her appetites, had wished to employ sentiment in the seduction of her son.

The stare of his blue eyes, his rigid seriousness had remained with her. She had seen in him both herself and his father, and the old jealous clamour had revived. "Mine" had been her cry. But she had understood Kit's obstinate shyness, and in dealing with men she had discovered the efficacy of attacking by retreating. She had held aloof during those three days, unable to believe that the elemental stuff in Christopher would not bring him to her. She would handle him gently. Let him but tolerate the first, subtle caress, and she would soon put her shears to his awkward shyness.

She was in love with youth now, and youth found her pleasant and easy. She had money to spend and she knew how to fill her car with young things, to carry a bouquet of youth about town to the dancing-rooms or the theatre. Aunt Dora was such a good sort.

And Christopher had not come to be caressed. The rigid