Growth of a Man by Mazo de la Roche

Author:Mazo de la Roche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 1937-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X

IN March of the next year Ian Blair was waiting for Shaw in the lounge of a Vancouver hotel. He was so impatient that he could not keep still but fretted up and down the room, now looking out of the window into the street, now rustling the pages of a newspaper, to the annoyance of an elderly British colonel who was reading the Spectator and sipping a liqueur.

At last, when Ian was not looking for him, Shaw appeared in the doorway. He looked so tall, so gaunt in his loose-fitting clothes, so mature yet so oddly appealing, that for an instant Ian let his eyes rest on him in appreciation, without speaking. Then he took three strides to his side.

“Blood on your brow,” he said, in his clear voice.

“Blood on your brow, brother,” answered Shaw, and touched Ian’s forehead with the tips of his fingers.

The elderly colonel glared at them astonished.

“Bloody deeds are to be done,” proceeded Ian.

“Our deeds will be bloody indeed, brother.”

The colonel riveted his blue gaze on them, he compressed his lips under his white moustache.

“Shall we go to my room and gloat over them?”

“You have spoken, my brother.”

The colonel rose with surprising agility and followed them to the door. He made a note of the number of the room to which they retired.

Inside the room Ian threw an arm about Shaw.

“Isn’t it grand that we’re to work together again?”

“Yes. And isn’t it lucky I was able to cut out the spring term?”

“How did you manage that?”

“Well, I did pretty well in the University—”

“Pretty well! I know your ‘pretty well’! I suppose you swept the professors right off their feet. Why be so modest, Shaw? I’m at the other end of the scale. I get through exams by the skin of my teeth. I think there’s something fine in both ways, don’t you?”

“I think you’re a clever fellow, Ian, but bone lazy.”

“Well, that’s neither here nor there. Tell me what you were going to.”

“It was only that I did pretty well and so they have given me leave of absence for this term. It will be taken up with work I know already and will not be much use to me. The money will.”

“To say nothing of the fun we’ll have!”

“Yes, to say nothing of the fun,” answered Shaw with his grave smile.

They sat down opposite each other by the window.

“You haven’t changed a bit, Shaw. Your smile is just the same as when we played at pirates and you had a licking to face afterwards.”

“I didn’t face that,” answered Shaw, his smile now a little grim. “It came from behind. Lord, I used to be so sore the next day I could hardly sit at my desk!”

“It was a darned shame.”

“Did you see any of my folks before you left?”

“I saw your mother, Shaw.”

What was there in Ian’s voice? A note of anxiety? Or was it only compassion? Was his mother ill? He asked, his eyes on his clasped hands:—

“How does she look?”

“Quite well, but rather tired.

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