Читать книгу The Peacock Feather. A Romance онлайн

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General Carden paused. There was a look of dim pain in his blue eyes. After a moment he re-read the passage carefully, and with infinitely more attention than the few sentences would appear to merit. Then he turned to the title-page and read the name of the author. Apparently it told him nothing he desired to know, and he continued his reading. Much farther on he came to another paragraph at which he again paused abruptly.

“‘Cricket,’ said the young man airily, ‘is a universal game, and means, speaking in general terms, the avoidance of anything which—well, hints of meanness or unfair play to our neighbours.’ [Pg 67]They were his father’s exact words, and he knew it. At the moment, however, he chose to make them his own.”

General Carden put down the book. His hands were shaking slightly. He told himself he was an old fool. Hundreds of fathers had used those words to their sons. They represented the first principle learnt by an Englishman. But then, there was the pear-tree, the shield-shaped wound in its bark, the initials, the old weather-beaten house. Memory began to exert her sway. He was sitting in a study window watching a tall, slim woman as she laughed at a thin slip of a boy climbing, monkey-like, among the branches of the old tree. He could hear the very sound of her laugh and the exultant ring of the boy’s voice.