"Very well, Father, I will pay for it myself," answered Godfrey.
"Oh, yes, I forgot!" exclaimed Mr. Knight, with a sneer, "you have come into money somehow, have you not, and doubtless consider yourself independent?"
"Yes, and I am glad of it, Father, as now I hope I shall not be any more expense to you."
"As you have begun to talk business, Godfrey," replied his father in an acid manner, "we may as well go into things and get it over. You have, I presume, made up your mind to go into the Church in accordance with my wish?"
"No, Father; I do not intend to become a clergyman."
"Indeed. You seem to me to have fallen under very bad influences in Switzerland. However, it does not much matter, as I intend that you shall."
"I am sorry, but I cannot, Father."
Then, within such limits as his piety permitted, which were sufficiently wide, Mr. Knight lost his temper very badly indeed. He attacked his son, suggesting that he had been leading an evil life in Lucerne, as he had learned "from outside sources," and declared that either he should obey him or be cast off. Godfrey, whose temper by this time was also rising, intimated that he preferred the latter alternative.
"What, then, do you intend to do, young man?" asked Mr. Knight.
"I do not know yet, Father." Then an inspiration came to him, and he added, "I shall go to London to-morrow to consult my trustees under Miss Ogilvy's will."
"Really," said Mr. Knight in a rage. "You are after that ill-gotten money, are you? Well, as we seem to agree so badly, why not go to-night instead of to-morrow; there is a late train? Perhaps it would be pleasanter for both of us, and then I need not send for your luggage. Also it would save my shifting the new boy from your room."
"Do you really mean that, Father?"
"I am not in the habit of saying what I do not mean. Only please understand that if you reject my plans for your career, which have been formed after much thought, and, I may add, prayer, I wash my hands of you who are now too old to be argued with in any other way."
Godfrey looked at his father and considered the iron mouth cut straight like a slit across the face, the hard, insignificant countenance and the small, cold, grey eyes. He realised the intensity of the petty anger based, for the most part, on jealousy because he was now independent and could not be ordered about and bullied like the rest of the little boys, and knew that behind it there was not affection, but dislike. Summing up all this in his quick mind, he became aware that father or not, he regarded this man with great aversion. Their natures, their outlook, all about them were antagonistic, and, in fact, had been so from the beginning. The less that they saw of each other the better it would be for both. Although still so young, he had ripened early, and was now almost a man who knew that these things were so without possibility of doubt.