The man moved a little and brushed his son's lips. Paul perceived in a moment that he had aged. Fear slipped suddenly into his mind. He peered a little to see his father's eyes, and then, with something like a catch in his heart, and with a deliberate blindness, pushed them before him into the study. "Oh, it is jolly to be back," he cried again, but with simulated enthusiasm now, refusing to admit what he had seen, stifling his growing apprehension. Mr. Kestern seated himself in his revolving chair in front of the bureau. His Bible lay open upon it. Paul caught a glimpse of the underlinings, the "railway-lines," the added red and black of the almost microscopic notes in the neat handwriting he knew so well. He looked swiftly round. The case of stuffed birds, the books, the framed portraits, a print of John G. Paton, missionary in the New Hebrides--nothing had changed. His eye fell on a text, the letters of which had been cut out separately with a fretsaw, hung on an invisible thread, and draped on the wall above the bureau. "Jesus Himself drew near and went with them." That was new; and yet, yet, how old! The old Claxted; the old faith; the old obstinate unchanging evangelicalism that was already a lifetime old to him. "How are all your new friends?" asked his father. The hidden note of bitterness stung Paul for the first time to something like anger. He choked it down, however. "Very well indeed, thanks," he said evenly. "I had supper with them last night, and saw Manning off to Cambridge this morning." "The very newspaper told us that much," said Mr. Kestern, with a gesture towards the _Morning Post_ that lay folded on a side-table. "After the theatre, I understand." The harshness of the man's voice was too obvious to allow of any further equivocation. Paul moved over to the fireplace, and his mother, seated in an arm-chair, held out a hand appealingly to him. "Paul, dear," she entreated, "don't anger your father. You know what he feels about the theatre." "But I've said nothing, mother," cried Paul miserably. "Nothing!" exclaimed Mr. Kestern, wheeling round on him, no longer able to restrain himself, "nothing! Do you think it is nothing that my boy should write a play? My son, photographed with a stage-manager, appearing--what is your word?--'called' before the curtain! Oh, God, what have I done that my son should come to this!" "Father, father, don't!" cried Mrs. Kestern. "Of course Paul must take his own place----" "Mother, you don't know what you say. His own place! But that is the son we gave to God, that is the son of our hopes and prayers, that is the boy for whom we contrived and saved that he might go to college, and now--now, he writes plays! The bitterness is more than I can bear. I have lost my son." The grim comedy of it was lost on the three of them. Mrs. Kestern burst into tears. "Father, dear," she sobbed, "don't say such terrible things. Oh, I can't bear it!"