Page:Cup of Gold-1929.djvu/110

Henry the highest type of proper wear. His own good clothing was shabby by comparison.

His uncle had been looking at him steadily, waiting for Henry to speak first.

“I am Henry Morgan, sir—Robert’s son,” he began simply.

“I see you are. There is a resemblance—a faint likeness. And what may I do for you?”

“Why, I—I don’t know. I came to call on you and inform you of my existence.”

“That was kind of you—ah—very kind.”

It was difficult to broach speech into this field of almost sneering courtesy. Henry asked,

“Have you heard any single thing of my parents in the long five years I have been out?”

“Five years! What have you been doing, pray?”

“I was a bond-servant, sir. But of my parents?”

“Your mother is dead.”

“My mother is dead,” Henry repeated in a whisper. He wondered if she had died soon after he had gone. He did not feel very badly about it, and yet the words sounded such tremendous things, such final things. This was the end of something that might never be again. “My mother is dead,” he murmured. “And my father?”

“I have heard that your father does peculiar things in his rose garden. Squire Rhys wrote me of it. He plucks the full flowers and casts them into the air like one mazed. The ground is covered with petals and the neighbors stand about and laugh at him. Robert was never normal; indeed,