“Well, he’s a nice boy, anyway,” came the other voice, “and Marcy’s proud of him, I can see. I guess he’ll turn out a credit in spite of his father. What time is it? My watch has stopped.”
“Come,” said Philip, softly. He walked away with Gerald. Neither spoke.
At length Gerald said, gently, “Is that all, Philip? You _made_ me listen!”
“All?” replied young Touchtone, bitterly. “Isn’t it enough? Yes, I made you listen! I wanted you to know the story before you saw any more of me. There’s another side to it, but that isn’t the one you will find people trouble themselves over. I wanted you to hear what you did. But I couldn’t tell you myself. I am the son of――of――my father. I don’t care for mere outsiders, who know it already and think none the worse of me for it. But other people, if I care any thing about them, why, they must know with whom they are taking up.”
It cost him a struggle to say this. Gerald was younger than he. But the manly, solitary little guest of the Ossokosee had gained in these two days a curious hold over him. Philip had never had a brother. If he had ever thought of one, the ideal conjured up would have been filled by Gerald. He felt it now as he stopped and faced the latter in the moonlight.
But Gerald looked straight up into Philip’s face. He smiled and said, “Philip, I believe your father didn’t do that.”
Touchtone put out his hand with a quick gesture of intense surprise.
“Gerald!” he cried as their two palms met in a clasp that hurt the smaller one, “what in the world made you say that?” There was something solemn, as well as eager, in his tone.
“O, nothing particular,” the heir of the Saxton impulsiveness answered, simply; “but I don’t believe it, that’s all! I don’t!”
“He don’t believe it either,” Gerald heard Philip say, as if to himself, “and I don’t. What a little trump you are, Gerald Saxton!” They walked a little further in silence; then Philip again spoke, in a tone from which all the sudden joy and cheerfulness were gone: “Well, Gerald, you and I may be able to prove it together some day to the people. But I don’t know――I don’t know!”
Certainly they were to accomplish many strange things together, whether that was to be one of them or not.