"David says you have an
understanding, will do great things. I hope so. I hope so. I won't damn
him as an example but he will do you no harm. That is, if he touches
your confounded person at all. A black Penny, Mrs. Winscombe," he said,
turning to the figure spread in pale silk on the sofa. "Fortunate for
you to have no such confounded, stubborn lot on your hands. Although,"
he added laughingly, "Felix Winscombe's no broken reed. But this boy of
mine--you might think he had been run out of Shadrach," he tapped a
finger on Howat's back. "Not like those fellows about the Court, anyway.
They tell me he'll go fifty miles through the woods in a day. Now if we
could only keep that at the iron trade--"
His father went on insufferably, without end. Howat withdrew stiffly
from the other's touch. Irresistibly he drifted back, back to Ludowika.
She had not moved; her bent hand seemed dislocated. An immense
tenderness for her overwhelmed him; his sheer passion vapourized into a
poignant sweetness of solicitous feeling. He was protective; his jaw set
rigidly, he enveloped her in an angry barrier from all the world. He had
a sensation of standing at bay; in his mulberry damask, in brocade and
silver buttons, he had an impression of himself stooped and savage,
confronting a menacing dark with Ludowika flung behind him.
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