He went into his father's study that night with a strange dismal
foreboding as though he were being drawn along upon some path that
he did not want to follow. What was his father mixed up with all
this business for? Why were such men as Thurston in existence? Why
couldn't life be simple and straightforward with people like his
father and himself and that girl Maggie alone somewhere with nothing
to interfere? Life was never just as you wanted it, always a little
askew, a little twisted, cynically cocking its eye at you before it
vanished round the corner? He didn't seem to be able to manage it.
Anyway, he wasn't going to have that fellow Thurston marrying his
sister.
He found his father lying back in his arm-chair fast asleep, looking
like a dead man, his long thin face pale with fatigue, his eyelids a
dull grey, his mouth tightly closed as though in a grim
determination to pursue some battle. And at the sight of him thus
worn out and beaten Martin's affection flooded his heart. He stood
opposite his father looking at him and loving him more deeply than
he had ever done before.
"I will take him away from all this," was his thought, "these
Thurstons and all--out of all this .
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