In the fourth year Richard wrote to his father, through his grandfather, informing him he had his B.A. degree and was awaiting further orders. The baronet was heartily pleased with the style of his letter, and in the privacy of his own room gave way to his delight at the thought of his wife’s approaching consternation. At the same time, however, he was not a little uneasy. The eyes of his wife had become almost a terror to him. Their gray ice, which had not grown clearer as she grew older, made him shiver. Why should the stronger so often be afraid of the weaker? Sometimes, I suppose, because the conscience happens to side with the weaker, or perhaps only because the weaker is able to make the stronger feel worse than uncomfortable. The baronet dared not present his son to his wife except in the presence of at least one stranger.

He wrote to Richard, appointing a day for his appearance at Mortgrange.

49. The Heir

— Forty-Nine —

The Heir

It was a lovely morning as Richard, his heart beating with a hope whose intensity of bliss he had never imagined, stopped at the station nearest to Mortgrange and set out to walk there in the afternoon sun. June folded him in her loveliness of warmth and colour. Often he had walked the same road, a contented tradesman.

A gentleman now, with a baronet for his father, he knew that he would always love the tradesman-uncle more than the baronet-father. He was grateful to his father for his reception of him, and for his education, but he could not be proud of him as he was of his mother and his aunt and uncle and grandfather. He considered it one of God’s greatest gifts to come of decent people. And if in his case the decency was on one side only, it was the more his part to stop the current of transmitted evil on the other side, and in his own person and character do what he might to annihilate it.

His only anxiety was that his father might again lay upon him the command to cease communication with his brother and sister. He lifted his heart up to God, and vowed that not for anything the earth could give would he obey. The socialism he had learned from his uncle had undergone a baptism to something infinitely higher. He prayed God to keep him clean of heart and able to hold by his duty. He promised God that he would not forsake his own, would not break the ties of blood for any law, custom, prejudice, or pride of man. The vow made his heart strong and light.