THREE:Albert could not help a grudging admiration of his father. Reuben could be angry and fling threats, and yet keep at the same time a certain splendour, which no[Pg 139] violence or vulgarity could dim. The boy, in spite of his verses, which were execrable enough, had a poet's eye for the splendid, and he could not be blind to the qualities of his father's tyranny, even though that tyranny crushed him at times. Reuben was now forty-three; a trifle heavier in build, perhaps, but otherwise as fine and straight a man as he had been at twenty. His clear brown skin, keen eyes, thick coal-black hair, his height, his strength, his dauntless spirit, could not fail to impress one in whom the sense of life and beauty was developing. Albert even once began a poem to his father:All through the sermon he sat with his eyes fixed on Realf's profile. There was his rival, the man with whom he would have to reckon most during the difficult future, with whom he was fighting for Boarzell. He looked marvellously young and comely as he sat there in the fretted light, and suddenly for the first time Reuben realised that he was not as young as he had been. He was forty-sixhe was getting old.
REVIVE YOUR WARDROBE WITH CHIC KNITS