Hogan, standing squarely upon the hearth, was beset by the
desire to kick Master Kenneth, or Master Jocelyn, into the
street. His lip curled into a sneer of ineffable contempt, for
his shrewd eyes read to the bottom of the lad's mean soul and
saw there clearly writ the confidence that emboldened him to
voice that insult to the man he must know for his father.
Standing there, he compared the two, marvelling deeply how they
came to be father and son. A likeness he saw now between them,
yet a likeness that seemed but to mark the difference. The one
harsh, resolute, and manly, for all his reckless living and his
misfortunes; the other mild, effeminate, hypocritical and
shifty. He read it not on their countenances alone, but in
every line of their figures as they stood, and in his heart he
cursed himself for having been the instrument to disclose the
relationship in which they stood.

The youth's insolent question was followed by a spell of
silence. Crispin could not believe that he had heard aright.
At last he stretched out his hands in a gesture of supplication
- he who throughout his thirty-eight years of life, and despite
the misfortunes that had been his, had never yet stooped to
plead from any man.

"Jocelyn," he cried, and the pain in his voice must have melted
a heart of steel, "you are hard. Have you forgotten the story
of my miserable life, the story that I told you in Worcester?
Can you not understand how suffering may destroy all that is
lofty in a man; how the forgetfulness of the winecup may come
to be his only consolation; the hope of vengeance his only