the same time affectionately, he remarked: "You're a jolly old
humbug!"

For a particular reason the words made our young man change colour. The
boy noticed in an instant that he had turned red, whereupon he turned red
himself and pupil and master exchanged a longish glance in which there
was a consciousness of many more things than are usually touched upon,
even tacitly, in such a relation. It produced for Pemberton an
embarrassment; it raised in a shadowy form a question--this was the first
glimpse of it--destined to play a singular and, as he imagined, owing to
the altogether peculiar conditions, an unprecedented part in his
intercourse with his little companion. Later, when he found himself
talking with the youngster in a way in which few youngsters could ever
have been talked with, he thought of that clumsy moment on the bench at
Nice as the dawn of an understanding that had broadened. What had added
to the clumsiness then was that he thought it his duty to declare to
Morgan that he might abuse him, Pemberton, as much as he liked, but must
never abuse his parents. To this Morgan had the easy retort that he
hadn't dreamed of abusing them; which appeared to be true: it put
Pemberton in the wrong.

"Then why am I a humbug for saying _I_ think them charming?" the young
man asked, conscious of a certain rashness.

"Well--they're not your parents."

"They love you better than anything in the world--never forget that,"
said Pemberton.

"Is that why you like them so much?"

"They're very kind to me," Pemberton replied evasively.

"You _are_ a humbug!" laughed Morgan, passing an arm into his tutor's. He
leaned against him looking oft at the sea again and swinging his long
thin legs.

"Don't kick my shins," said Pemberton while he reflected "Hang it, I
can't complain of them to the child!"

"There's another reason, too," Morgan went on, keeping his legs still.

"Another reason for what?"

"Besides their not being your parents."

"I don't understand you," said Pemberton.

"Well, you will before long. All right!"

He did understand fully before long, but he made a fight even with
himself before he confessed it. He thought it the oddest thing to have a
struggle with the child about. He wondered he didn't hate the hope of
the Moreens for bringing the struggle on. But by the time it began any
such sentiment for that scion was closed to him. Morgan was a special
case, and to know him was to accept him