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. That
Barouche knew. He had the useful gift of reading the minds of people in
their faces. From Carnac's face, from Carnac's mother's face, had come
to him the real story. He knew that Alma Grier had sinned only once and
with him. In the first days after that ill-starred month, he had gone to
her, only to be repelled as a woman can repel whose soul has been
shocked, whose self-respect has been shamed.
It had been as though she thrust out arms of infinite length to push him
away, such had been the storm of her remorse, such the revulsion against
herself and him. So they had fallen apart, and he had seen his boy grow
up independent, original, wilful, capable--a genius. He read the
newspaper reports of what had happened the day before with senses greatly
alive.
After all, politics was unlike everything else.
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