There had come to him at last a sense of duty where Alma
Grier was concerned. She was nearly fifty years of age, and he was
fifty-nine; she was a widow with this world's goods; she had been to him
how near and dear! for a brief hour, and then--no more. He knew the boy
was his son, because he saw his own face, as it had been in his youth,
though his mother's look was also there-transforming, illumining.
He had a pang as he saw the two at the close of his meeting filtering out
into the great retort of the world. Then it was that he had the impulse
to go to the woman's home, express his sorrow, and in some small sense
wipe out his wrong by offering her marriage. He had not gone.
He knew of Carnac's success in the world of Art; and how he had alienated
his reputed father by an independence revolting to a slave of convention.
He had even bought, not from Carnac, but from a dealer, two of Carnac's
pictures and a statue of a riverman. Somehow the years had had their way
with him. He had at long last realized that material things were not the
great things of life, and that imagination, however productive, should be
guided by uprightness of soul.
One thing was sure, the boy had never been told who his father was.
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