Tales of Men and Ghosts Part 9

Mr. Grew leaned back, his hands thrust carelessly in his pockets, as though to divert attention from the agitation of his features. He had often pictured himself rolling out that phrase to Ronald, and now that it was actually on his lips he could not control their tremor.

Ronald listened in silence, lifting a nervous hand to his slight dark moustache, as though he, too, wished to hide some involuntary betrayal of emotion. At first Mr. Grew took his silence for an expression of gratified surprise; but as it prolonged itself it became less easy to interpret.

"I--see here, my boy; did you expect more? Isn't it enough?" Mr. Grew cleared his throat. "Do _they_ expect more?" he asked nervously. He was hardly able to face the pain of inflicting a disappointment on Ronald at the very moment when he had counted on putting the final touch to his felicity.

Ronald moved uneasily in his chair and his eyes wandered upward to the laurel-wreathed photograph of the pianist above his father's head.

"_ Is_ it that, Ronald? Speak out, my boy. We'll see, we'll look round--I'll manage somehow."

"No, no," the young man interrupted, abruptly raising his hand as though to silence his father.

Mr. Grew recovered his cheerfulness. "Well, what's the matter than, if _she's_ willing?"

Ronald s.h.i.+fted his position again, and finally rose from his seat.

"Father--I--there's something I've got to tell you. I can't take your money."

Mr. Grew sat speechless a moment, staring blankly at his son; then he emitted a puzzled laugh. "My money? What are you talking about? What's this about my money? Why, it ain't _mine_, Ronny; it's all yours--every cent of it!" he cried.

The young man met his tender look with a gaze of tragic rejection.

"No, no, it's not mine--not even in the sense you mean. Not in any sense. Can't you understand my feeling so?"

"Feeling so? I don't know how you're feeling. I don't know what you're talking about. Are you too proud to touch any money you haven't earned?

Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"No. It's not that. You must know--"

Mr. Grew flushed to the rim of his bristling whiskers. "Know? Know _what?_ Can't you speak?"

Ronald hesitated, and the two men faced each other for a long strained moment, during which Mr. Grew's congested countenance grew gradually pale again.

"What's the meaning of this? Is it because you've done something ...

something you're ashamed of ... ashamed to tell me?" he suddenly gasped out; and walking around the table he laid his hand on his son's shoulder. "There's nothing you can't tell me, my boy."

"It's not that. Why do you make it so hard for me?" Ronald broke out with pa.s.sion. "You must have known this was sure to happen sooner or later."

"Happen? What was sure to hap--?" Mr. Grew's question wavered on his lip and pa.s.sed into a tremulous laugh. "Is it something _I've_ done that you don't approve of? Is it--is it _the Buckle_ you're ashamed of, Ronald Grew?"

Ronald laughed too, impatiently. "The Buckle? No, I'm not ashamed of the Buckle; not any more than you are," he returned with a sudden bright flush. "But I'm ashamed of all I owe to it--all I owe to you--when--when--" He broke off and took a few distracted steps across the room. "You might make this easier for me," he protested, turning back to his father.

"Make what easier? I know less and less what you're driving at," Mr.

Grew groaned.

Ronald's walk had once more brought him beneath the photograph on the wall. He lifted his head for a moment and looked at it; then he looked again at Mr. Grew.

"Do you suppose I haven't always known?"

"Known--?"

"Even before you gave me those letters--after my mother's death--even before that, I suspected. I don't know how it began ... perhaps from little things you let drop ... you and she ... and resemblances that I couldn't help seeing ... in myself ... How on earth could you suppose I shouldn't guess? I always thought you gave me the letters as a way of telling me--"

Mr. Grew rose slowly from his chair. "The letters? Dolbrowski's letters?"

Ronald nodded with white lips. "You must remember giving them to me the day after the funeral."

Mr. Grew nodded back. "Of course. I wanted you to have everything your mother valued."

"Well--how could I help knowing after that?"

"Knowing _what?_" Mr. Grew stood staring helplessly at his son. Suddenly his look caught at a clue that seemed to confront it with a deeper bewilderment. "You thought--you thought those letters ... Dolbrowski's letters ... you thought they meant ..."

"Oh, it wasn't only the letters. There were so many other signs. My love of music--my--all my feelings about life ... and art... And when you gave me the letters I thought you must mean me to know."

Mr. Grew had grown quiet. His lips were firm, and his small eyes looked out steadily from their creased lids.

"To know that you were Fortune Dolbrowski's son?"

Ronald made a mute sign of a.s.sent.

"I see. And what did you mean to do?"

"I meant to wait till I could earn my living, and then repay you ...

as far as I can ever repay you... But now that there's a chance of my marrying ... and your generosity overwhelms me ... I'm obliged to speak."

"I see," said Mr. Grew again. He let himself down into his chair, looking steadily and not unkindly at the young man. "Sit down, Ronald.

Let's talk."

Ronald made a protesting movement. "Is anything to be gained by it?

You can't change me--change what I feel. The reading of those letters transformed my whole life--I was a boy till then: they made a man of me.

From that moment I understood myself." He paused, and then looked up at Mr. Grew's face. "Don't imagine I don't appreciate your kindness--your extraordinary generosity. But I can't go through life in disguise. And I want you to know that I have not won Daisy under false pretences--"

Mr. Grew started up with the first expletive Ronald had ever heard on his lips.

"You d.a.m.ned young fool, you, you haven't _told_ her--?"

Ronald raised his head quickly. "Oh, you don't know her, sir! She thinks no worse of me for knowing my secret. She is above and beyond all such conventional prejudices. She's _proud_ of my parentage--" he straightened his slim young shoulders--"as I'm proud of it ... yes, sir, proud of it..."

Mr. Grew sank back into his seat with a dry laugh. "Well, you ought to be. You come of good stock. And you're father's son, every inch of you!"

He laughed again, as though the humor of the situation grew on him with its closer contemplation.

"Yes, I've always felt that," Ronald murmured, flus.h.i.+ng.

"Your father's son, and no mistake." Mr. Grew leaned forward. "You're the son of as big a fool as yourself. And here he sits, Ronald Grew."

The young man's flush deepened to crimson; but Mr. Grew checked his reply with a decisive gesture. "Here he sits, with all your young nonsense still alive in him. Don't you see the likeness? If you don't, I'll tell you the story of those letters."

Ronald stared. "What do you mean? Don't they tell their own story?"