Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/271

 "I'll pay you back."

"When you like. It is between friends."

On the following evening Christopher took a late train to Winstonbury. He had wired to his father, and Sorrell met him at the station, a rather anxious Sorrell.

"All right, old chap?"

"Quite," and Kit's hand-grip was steady and reassuring.

They sat up till late, talking over Pentreath's tragedy, though Kit's opening words had disturbed his father.

"I wonder if I might have a little more money, pater. You know,—you let me"

"Of course. How much?"

"It's not for myself. Pentreath has got himself into a mess."

Christopher thought that he had never seen his father looking so happy and so well. A great man, his pater! There were times when you felt a kind of inward glow spreading from him and warming you. He had no fussiness. Kit looked across at him sitting so much at his ease in the big chair, one leg crooked over the other, a hand clasping the bowl of his pipe, so ready to listen, so understanding in his judgments.

"We can manage it, Kit. You are absolutely right about wanting to help Pentreath. I can do it without docking you of your money."

"But that's too generous. You see,—I'm not spending much."

"Quite so. I'm banking it for you. You can open an account of your own—if you like."

"No. I would rather you sent me so much extra, and I can pass it on to Maurice. He wants looking after. Not quite enough sand."

Sorrell smiled. He was thanking the unknown God for the blessing of ballast, and for this sturdy structure that was his son. It was good to be able to feel as he was feeling.

Manage it? Of course he could. The Roland Hotels were paying thirty per cent., and the profits made by "Williams of Winstonbury" had risen by some hundreds of pounds above the Grapp level.

Sorrell curled himself up comfortably in bed.

"Life's good. Thank God it was the other man's boy. How damned selfish we are."