Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/191

 "My father is my chief care, Mr. Harkness. He is everything to me in the world. He has no one to look after him but myself. He is, as you must have seen, very nervous and susceptible to different personalities. I could see at once to-night that your personality is one that would have a very disturbing effect on him. He does not recognise these things himself, and so I have to protect him. I beg you to leave him alone."

"But really," Harkness cried, "the boot's on the other leg. Your father has been very charming in showing me his lovely things, but it was he who sought me out, not I him. I haven't the least desire to push my acquaintance with him, or indeed with yourself, any further."

Crispin's cold eyes regarded Harkness steadily, then he moved round the table until he was close beside him.

"I will tell you something, Mr.—ah—Harkness—something that probably you do not know. There have been one or two persons as foolish and interfering as to suggest that my father is not in complete control of his faculties, even that he is dangerous to the public peace. My father is an original mind. There is no one like him in this whole world, no one who has the good of the human race at heart as he has. He goes his own way, and at times has pursued certain experiments that were necessary for the development of his general plan.