Page:The Unspeakable Gentleman (IA unspeakablegent00marq).pdf/22

 I consented to revisit these familiar scenes!"

"No," I said, "I cannot, sir, since you ask me."

My father shrugged his shoulders.

"Far be it from me to overstrain your credulity, my son," he observed blandly. "Let us admit then there was also some slight factor of expedience—but slight, Henry, almost negligible, in fact. It happened that I was in a French port, and that while there I should think of you."

"Sir," I said, "You startle me!"

But he continued, regardless of my interruption.

"And what should be there also, but the Eclipse, ready to set for home! Quite suddenly I determined to sail her back. I, too, was curious, my son." For a moment his voice lost its bantering note. "Curious," he continued gravely, "to know whether you were a man like me, or one of whom I might have reason to be proud. . . . So here we are, Henry. Who said coincidence was the exception and not the rule?"

His last words drifted gently away, and in their wake followed an awkward silence. The logs were hissing in the fire. I could hear the clock in the hall outside, and the beating of the vines against the window