embraces, but he did not respond to them, and he straightened himself
with relief when the assault was over. Some one was paying homage to
him, that was all he knew; but for his own satisfaction and pleasure he
preferred as yet his old comrades, Edward Lambert, Captain Vidall,
General Armour, and, above all, Richard. He only showed real interest
at the last, when he asked, as it were in compromise, if his father would
give him a sword. No one had ever talked to him of his father, and he
had no instinct for him so far as could be seen. The sword was,
therefore, after the manner of a concession. Frank rashly promised it,
and was promptly told by Marion that it couldn't be; and she was backed
by Captain Vidall, who said it had already been tabooed, and Frank wasn't
to come in and ask for favours or expect them.

The husband and wife met at breakfast. He was down first. When his wife
entered, he came to her, they touched hands, and she presently took a
seat beside him. More than once he paused suddenly in his eating, when
he thought of his inexplicable case. He was now face to face with a
reversed situation. He had once picked up a pebble from the brown dirt
of a prairie, that he might toss it into the pool of this home life; and
he had tossed it, and from the sweet bath there had come out a precious
stone, which he longed to wear, and knew that he could not--not yet.
He could have coerced a lower being, but for his manhood's sake--he had
risen to that now, it is curious how the dignity of fatherhood helps to
make a man--he could not coerce here, and if he did, he knew that the
product would be disaster.

He listened to her talk with Marion and Captain Vidall. Her voice
was musical, balanced, her language breathed; it had manner, and an
indescribable cadence of intelligence, joined to a deliberation, which
touched her off with distinction. When she spoke to him--and she seemed