"There have been some moments between us, sir, which have been,
unfortunately, unpleasant."
"And yet I have done so much to make them pleasant to you! I should have
thought that the offer of all Tretton would have gone for much with
you."
Augustus was again taken in. There was a piteous whine about his
father's voice which once more deceived him. He did not dream of the
depth of the old man's anger. He did not imagine that at such a moment
it could boil over with such ferocity; nor was he altogether aware of
the cat-like quietude with which he could pave the way for his last
spring. Mountjoy, by far the least gifted of the two, had gained the
truer insight to his father's character.
"You had done much, or rather, as I supposed, circumstances had done
much."
"Circumstances?"
"The facts, I mean, as to Mountjoy's birth and my own."
"I have not always left myself to be governed by actual circumstances."
"If there was any omission on my part of an expression of proper
feeling, I regret it."
"I don't know that there was. What is proper feeling? There was no
hypocrisy, at any rate."
"You sometimes are a little bitter, sir."
"I hope you won't find it so when I am gone."
"I don't know what I said that has angered you, but I may have been
driven to say what I did not feel.
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