Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/244

 his friends, Tom Roland's music, the hotels, William of Winstonbury, books, labour, the tendencies of the day as each saw them, trees, flowers, human eccentricities, women. Kit was shy of women. He had not forgotten Lola Merrindin, and that emotional adventure with his mother. They never mentioned Mrs. Duggan to each other; she had not troubled them again after a final and unsuccessful attempt on her part to persuade Sorrell that she was a lonely, reformed and misunderstood woman.

For all that Sorrell knew she might be all she claimed to be, but he had no intention of helping her to experiment upon Kit.

So far as his experience of life served him Sorrell had gathered that people did not change. Their distinctive characteristics became emphasized or softened. They grew kinder or more greedy or more stupid, or more crassly self-absorbed. During the days of his portership he had observed human nature as it displayed itself in an hotel, and his conclusions had made him a tolerant cynic in his attitude, Save to the very few.

To Kit he emphasized the need for independence. It was the one god-like quality that a man should strive for.

"Be free. No foot on your neck. Get money; go armed. Get money and go armed for the sake of the job you love."

Kit understood all this, for he had been a spectator while his father had fought in the arena.

"Didn't you feel pretty desperate, sometimes, pater?"

"Sick in the stomach, as the Americans say. But I wanted to put you on your perch."

"It's a pretty good perch. I want a first in the Science Trip. Then—there will be the second M.B. and the first part of the Fellowship. And London"

"Yes, London," said Sorrell thoughtfully. "Have you ever heard of fellows being afraid of London!"

Kit nodded.

"Pentreath is,"—Pentreath was one of Kit's friends.

"What is he afraid of?"

"O,—things," said Kit very seriously; "women and all that. Queer, isn't it? Yet, he is perfectly genuine about it. He's got sisters. They take things rather seriously, the Pentreaths. Good people, a bit too—too sensitive."