Whatever had been her first purpose of using him only as an
instrument through which to strike against his father, whatever
might be her present plan of eliminating him from her life in the
future, he still was sure that she had grown to know a real and
lasting affection for himself. He remembered startled glances
from the violet eyes, caught unawares, and the music of her voice
in rare instants, and these told him that love for him stirred,
even though it might as yet be but faintly, in her heart.
Out of that fact, he drew an immediate comfort in this period of
his misery. Nevertheless, his anguish was a racking one. He
grew older visibly in the night and the day. There crept
suddenly lines of new feeling into his face, and, too, lines of
new strength. The boy died in that time; the man was born, came
forth in the full of his steadfastness and his courage, and his
love.
The father suffered with the son. He was a proud man, intensely
gratified over the commanding position to which he had achieved
in the commercial world, proud of his business integrity, of his
standing in the community as a leader, proud of his social
position, proud most of all of the son whom he so loved.
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