They looked at each other again, and there
was a resemblance in the very manner of raising the eyelid. There
was a stronger resemblance in the grim waiting silence which neither
of them would break.
At last Jack spoke, approaching the fire and looking into it.
"You must excuse my taking you by surprise at this--unusual hour."
He turned; saw the lamp, the book, and the eyeglasses--more
especially the eyeglasses, which seemed to break the train of his
thoughts. "I only landed at Liverpool this afternoon," he went on,
with hopeless politeness. "I did not trouble you with a telegram,
knowing that you object to them."
The old man bowed gravely.
"I am always glad to see you," he said suavely. "Will you not sit
down?"
And they had begun wrong. It is probable that neither of them had
intended this. Both had probably dreamed of a very different
meeting. But both alike had counted without that stubborn pride
which will rise up at the wrong time and in the wrong place--the
pride which Jack Meredith had inherited by blood and teaching from
his father.
"I suppose you have dined," said Sir John, when they were seated,
"or may I offer you something?"
"Thanks, I dined on the way up--in a twilit refreshment-room, with
one waiter and a number of attendant black-beetles.
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