Propping
Keith's picture up in front of him against a pile of books, he leaned
forward, gazing at it earnestly. He had never realised before how much
he loved the little son, who hour by hour seemed slowly slipping farther
away from him. The pictured face looked full into his as if it would
speak. It wore the same sweet, trustful expression that had shone there
the night he talked to Jonesy of the Hall of the Shields; the same
childish purity that had moved the old professor to lay his hands upon
his head and call him Galahad.
All that gentle birth, college breeding, wealth, and travel could give a
man, were Sydney Maclntyre's, and yet, measuring himself by Keith's
standard of knighthood, he felt himself sadly lacking. He had given
liberally to charities hundreds of dollars, because it was often easier
for him to write out a check than to listen to somebody's tale of
suffering. But aside from that he had left the old world to wag on as
best it could, with its grievous load of wrong and sorrow.
A man is not apt to trouble himself as to how it wags for those outside
his circle of friends, when the generations before him have spent their
time laying up a fortune for him to enjoy. But this man was beginning to
trouble himself about it now, as he paced restlessly up and down the
room. He was not thinking now about the things that usually occupied
him, his social duties, his home or club, or yacht or horses or kennels.
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