And she had sighed so long for one--ever since Lady Helmington promised last autumn to take her to London.

"Thank you," she answered, quite simply in return. "I--I do not think I shall be afraid of Morry's friends again."

Michael's eyes flashed.

"If they give you reason to be so," quoth he, "I pray you tell me their names. They shall learn a lesson in manners at least--from a traitor's son."

The last words revealed--in part--to the girl a latent bitterness in this man's life. Yet she smiled as she ran home, through the wicket and over the lawns, leaving a trail of primrose blooms behind her, for she knew that thus unexpectedly on a May day she had reached womanhood's first goal.

CHAPTER VII

THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN

Michael Berrington walked home alone, but he was no longer lonely.

In his hand he held a tiny bunch of primroses, in his heart was already enshrined a small oval face with hazel stars for eyes, and alluring dimples which might well have tempted St. Anthony's self.

He was dreaming of dimples, eyes, and all the pretty foolishness of a youthful lover's first great pa.s.sion as he entered his home.

Comrade, the faithful deerhound, met him at the entrance.

"There is news, yonder, master, but I cannot quite understand it," the great animal tried dumbly to explain, and restlessly led the way back towards the library.

Lights were burning, the door open, and old Bates the butler coming nervously forward, when a voice, rich, sweet, and powerful, though broken once and again by an explanatory hiccough, broke the silence:

"The jolly Muse, her wings to try, No frolic flights need take, But round the bowl would dip and fly Like swallows round a lake.

And that I think's a reason fair To drink and fill again."

"Mr. Michael, Mr. Michael," faltered Bates, in nervous agitation.

But Michael Berrington put him aside with commanding hand.

He knew he was going in to greet his father for the first time in his life.

Stephen Berrington lolled back in the wide armchair. Before him on a table was placed a large bowl of punch, in his mouth was a long pipe.

He was very much at home.

He rose, smiling, at sight of the tall figure on the threshold. If he had been drinking he was by no means drunken, and his appearance was that of a very handsome but somewhat dissipated man of fifty, dressed in the height of fashion, his powdered wig a little awry, but his eyes bright and wonderfully amused at the present moment. His manner was perfectly friendly.

"Why, Michael!" he cried. "Demn it all, lad, if the first sight of you doesn't make me feel an old man. Come, you'll shake hands with a prodigal father? You're not your poor mother's son, else."

He held out a welcoming hand as he spoke, but Michael ignored it, dropping into a chair.

In all his visions and pictures of his father's return he had never imagined this.

Stephen Berrington did not appear to take offence at his son's refusal of greeting, but sank back into his chair, refilling his gla.s.s with punch.

"Old Bates hasn't forgotten his mixture," he observed drily, "though it's nearly thirty years since I tasted it. Thirty years! Well!

you'll have heard the story, Mike, and I suppose have long since written me down as a black-hearted devil who's no fit company for honest men."

He pa.s.sed his hand wearily over his brow as he spoke.

Michael flushed. Though he had expected his father's return eventually, the shock of this unlooked-for home-coming had thrown him off his balance.

"I was with my mother and grandfather on their death-beds," said he, shortly.

His father sighed.

"Yes," he said. "I don't wonder you refused my hand, lad; yet there's more excuse than you know of. I can't tell you all now, but I will--one day."

Michael was twisting the stems of a little bunch of primroses between nervous fingers.

"Ralph Conyers is dead also," he replied unsteadily.

Stephen Berrington looked up sharply.

"I know," he answered. "Ah yes! Of course _that_ story has been drummed well into you. A moment's weakness, and a man's whole lifetime to be cursed for it."

"It cost his friends more."

"Oh, aye; I know. But what of it? If I had not spoken we should have all been strung up in a row. I could not have saved Pryor and Farquhar. No, nor Conyers either, for that matter. As it was I saved my own skin, and never really hurt theirs. What blame?"

"Need a gentleman ask that question?"

"Tra, la, la! Sir Henry always was a good schoolmaster there. A trifle out of date, though, my son, as you will find. Why, even Morry himself took my word for it and shook hands afterwards."

"Morry?"

"Morice Conyers--poor old Ralph's son. A buck worth having for a son, too. Why! we're the best of friends."

"Morice Conyers your friend?"

"You look unbelieving, my Bayard, but it is true that I drove down here on friend Morry's coach, and, had it not been for my ardent longing to embrace you and see again these ancestral halls, I should now be toasting the prettiest eyes in the kingdom, and drinking to the august health of our liege lord Prince Florizel, who is at present between the sheets in his royal residence at Carlton House, suffering from an attack of indigestion."

Then, suddenly dropping his lighter tone of badinage, the speaker leant forward.

"Look here, Michael," he said,--and there lacked not a certain wistful pleading in his tones,--"others have agreed to let the past be forgotten; can't my own son join them there? It's true my crop of wild oats was plentiful enough. As for that Jacobite affair, I--well--I've often wished that I'd been in Pryor's place, and written finis on a jumble of mistakes and a life which was not then quite such a wretched failure."

"If it had been only----"

"Roast me, sir! Are you my Lord High Inquisitor to ask what else I've been doing through these years, and call me blackguard for everything not explained?"

"You forget my mother."