He feared his life might not be as easy as it was at
present. But he did not seriously fear. It was not in his nature--it
never is in the natures of such men--to give any excess of
consideration to the future. When his thoughts did turn to it in
momentary uneasiness, he would abruptly dismiss them with the
reflection that when all was said Oliver loved him, and Oliver would
never fail to provide adequately for all his wants.
In this undoubtedly he was fully justified. Oliver was more parent
than brother to him. When their father had been brought home to die
from the wound dealt him by an outraged husband--and a shocking
spectacle that sinner's death had been with its hasty terrified
repentance--he had entrusted Lionel to his elder brother's care. At
the time Oliver was seventeen and Lionel twelve. But Oliver had seemed
by so many years older than his age, that the twice-widowed Ralph
Tressilian had come to depend upon this steady, resolute, and masterful
child of his first marriage. It was into his ear that the dying man
had poured the wretched tale of his repentance for the life he had
lived and the state in which he was leaving his affairs with such scant
provision for his sons. For Oliver he had no fear. It was as if with
the prescience that comes to men in his pass he had perceived that
Oliver was of those who must prevail, a man born to make the world his
oyster. His anxieties were all for Lionel, whom he also judged with
that same penetrating insight vouchsafed a man in his last hours.
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