e me. I saw
volumes of cloud rolling swiftly across, and meteors, or billiard-balls,
I knew not which, shooting through them. I played and missed; I did
not even strike a ball. A wild roar of laughter, a cry of joy, and a
confused blending of several voices in various tones followed, and
I stood there like one stunned into immobility. Meanwhile Cleremont
finished the game, and, clapping me gayly on the shoulder, cried, "I 'm
more grateful to you than your father is, my lad. That shaking hands of
yours has made a difference of two hundred Naps to me." I turned towards
the fire; my father had left the room.

CHAPTER VII. A PRIVATE AUDIENCE

I had but reached my room when Eccles followed me to say my father
wished to see me at once.

"Come, come, Digby," said Eccles, good-naturedly, "don't be frightened.
Even if he should be angry with you, his passion passes soon over;
and, if uncontradicted, he is never disposed to bear a grudge long. Go
immediately, however, and don't keep him waiting."

I cannot tell with what a sense of abasement I entered my father's
dressing-room; for, after all, it was the abject condition of my own
mind that weighed me down.

"So, sir," said he, as I closed the door, "this is something I was not
prepared for. You might be forty things, but I certainly did not suspect
that a son of mine should be a coward."

Had my father ransacked his whole vocabulary for a term of insult, he
could pot have found one to pain me like this.

"I am not a coward, sir," said I, reddening till I felt my face in a
perfect glow.

"What!" cried he, passionately; "are you going to give me a proof of
courage by daring to outrage _me?_ Is it by sending back my words in my
teeth you assume to be brave?"

"I ask pardon, sir," said I, humbly, "if I have replied rudely; but you
called me by a name that made me forget myself. I hope you will forgive
me."

"Sit down, there, sir; no, there." And he pointed to a more distant
chair. "There are various sorts and shades of cowardice, and I would
not have you tarnished with any one of them. The creature whose first
thought, and indeed only one, in an emergency is his personal safety,
and who, till that condition is secured, abstains from all action, is
below contempt; him I will not even consider. But next to him--of
course with a long interval--comes the fellow who is so afraid of a
responsibility that the very thought of it unmans him. How did the fact
of my wager c