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CHAPTER III - IN THE ADMIRAL'S NAME
THERE was no return to the subject. Dick and his father were
henceforth on terms of coldness. The upright old gentleman
grew more upright when he met his son, buckrammed with
immortal anger; he asked after Dick's health, and discussed
the weather and the crops with an appalling courtesy; his
pronunciation was POINT-DE-VICE, his voice was distant,
distinct, and sometimes almost trembling with suppressed
indignation.
As for Dick, it seemed to him as if his life had come
abruptly to an end. He came out of his theories and
clevernesses; his premature man-of-the-worldness, on which he
had prided himself on his travels, 'shrank like a thing
ashamed' before this real sorrow. Pride, wounded honour,
pity and respect tussled together daily in his heart; and now
he was within an ace of throwing himself upon his father's
mercy, and now of slipping forth at night and coming back no
more to Naseby House. He suffered from the sight of his
father, nay, even from the neighbourhood of this familiar
valley, where every corner had its legend, and he was
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