The Four Feathers | Page 5

door behind him. The
decanter was sent again upon its rounds; there was a popping of
soda-water bottles; the talk revolved again in its accustomed groove.
Harry was in an instant forgotten by all but Sutch. The lieutenant,
although he prided himself upon his impartial and disinterested study of
human nature, was the kindliest of men. He had more kindliness than
observation by a great deal. Moreover, there were special reasons
which caused him to take an interest in Harry Feversham. He sat for a
little while with the air of a man profoundly disturbed. Then, acting
upon an impulse, he went to the door, opened it noiselessly, as
noiselessly passed out, and, without so much as a click of the latch,
closed the door behind him.
And this is what he saw: Harry Feversham, holding in the centre of the
hall a lighted candle high above his head, and looking up toward the
portraits of the Fevershams as they mounted the walls and were lost in
the darkness of the roof. A muffled sound of voices came from the

other side of the door panels, but the hall itself was silent. Harry stood
remarkably still, and the only thing which moved at all was the yellow
flame of the candle as it flickered apparently in some faint draught. The
light wavered across the portraits, glowing here upon a red coat,
glittering there upon a corselet of steel. For there was not one man's
portrait upon the walls which did not glisten with the colours of a
uniform, and there were the portraits of many men. Father and son, the
Fevershams had been soldiers from the very birth of the family. Father
and son, in lace collars and bucket boots, in Ramillies wigs and steel
breastplates, in velvet coats, with powder on their hair, in shakos and
swallow-tails, in high stocks and frogged coats, they looked down upon
this last Feversham, summoning him to the like service. They were
men of one stamp; no distinction of uniform could obscure their
relationship--lean-faced men, hard as iron, rugged in feature,
thin-lipped, with firm chins and straight, level mouths, narrow
foreheads, and the steel-blue inexpressive eyes; men of courage and
resolution, no doubt, but without subtleties, or nerves, or that
burdensome gift of imagination; sturdy men, a little wanting in delicacy,
hardly conspicuous for intellect; to put it frankly, men rather stupid--all
of them, in a word, first-class fighting men, but not one of them a
first-class soldier.
But Harry Feversham plainly saw none of their defects. To him they
were one and all portentous and terrible. He stood before them in the
attitude of a criminal before his judges, reading his condemnation in
their cold unchanging eyes. Lieutenant Sutch understood more clearly
why the flame of the candle flickered. There was no draught in the hall,
but the boy's hand shook. And finally, as though he heard the mute
voices of his judges delivering sentence and admitted its justice, he
actually bowed to the portraits on the wall. As he raised his head, he
saw Lieutenant Sutch in the embrasure of the doorway.
He did not start, he uttered no word; he let his eyes quietly rest upon
Sutch and waited. Of the two it was the man who was embarrassed.
"Harry," he said, and in spite of his embarrassment he had the tact to
use the tone and the language of one addressing not a boy, but a

comrade equal in years, "we meet for the first time to-night. But I knew
your mother a long time ago. I like to think that I have the right to call
her by that much misused word 'friend.' Have you anything to tell me?"
"Nothing," said Harry.
"The mere telling sometimes lightens a trouble."
"It is kind of you. There is nothing."
Lieutenant Sutch was rather at a loss. The lad's loneliness made a
strong appeal to him. For lonely the boy could not but be, set apart as
he was, no less unmistakably in mind as in feature, from his father and
his father's fathers. Yet what more could he do? His tact again came to
his aid. He took his card-case from his pocket.
"You will find my address upon this card. Perhaps some day you will
give me a few days of your company. I can offer you on my side a day
or two's hunting."
A spasm of pain shook for a fleeting moment the boy's steady
inscrutable face. It passed, however, swiftly as it had come.
"Thank you, sir," Harry monotonously repeated. "You are very kind."
"And if ever you want to talk over a difficult question with an older
man, I am at your service."
He spoke purposely in a formal voice, lest Harry with a boy's
sensitiveness should