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Duncan stood with his father, at his stepmother’s side, on her afternoon at home, prompting her when names or faces confused her, treating her with a little air of gracious intimacy eminently becoming and charming under the circumstances. His tact stood between her and more than one blunder, and it was to be noticed that she relied upon him even more than upon his father. Carey Coppered, indeed, hitherto staid and serious, was quite transformed by his joy and pride in her, and would not have seen a thousand blunders on her part. The consensus of opinion, among his friends, was that Carey was “really a little absurd, don’t you know?” and that Mrs. Carey was “quite deliciously odd,” and that Duncan was “too wonderful–poor, dear boy!”

Mrs. Coppered would have agreed that her stepson was wonderful, but with quite a literal meaning. She found him a real cause for wonder–this poised, handsome, crippled boy of nineteen, with his tailor, and his tutor, and his groom, and the heavy social responsibilities that bored him so heartily. With the honesty of a naturally brilliant mind cultivated by hard experience, and much solitary reading, she was quite ready to admit that her marriage had placed her in a new and confusing environment; she wanted only to adapt herself, to learn the strange laws by which it was controlled. And she would naturally have turned quite simply to Duncan for help.

But Duncan very gently, very coldly, repelled her. He was representative of his generation. Things were not LEARNED by the best people; they were instinctively KNOWN. The girls that Duncan knew–the very children in their nurseries–never hesitated over the wording of a note of thanks, never innocently omitted the tipping of a servant, never asked their maid’s advice as to suitable frocks and gloves for certain occasions. All these things, and a thousand more, his stepmother did, to his cold embarrassment and annoyance.

The result was unfortunate in two ways. Mrs. Coppered shrank under the unexpressed disapproval into more than her native timidity, rightly thinking his attitude represented that of all her new world; and Carey, who worshipped his young wife, perceived at last that Duncan was not championing his stepmother, and for the first time in his life showed a genuine displeasure with his son.

This was exquisitely painful to Margaret Coppered. She knew what father and son had been to each other before her coming; she knew, far better than Carey, that the boy’s adoration of his father was the one vital passion of his life. Mrs. Ayers, the housekeeper, sometimes made her heartsick with innocent revelations.

“From the day his mother died, Mrs. Coppered, my dear, when poor little Master Duncan wasn’t but three weeks old, I don’t believe he and his father were separated an hour when they could be together! Mr. Coppered would take that little owl-faced baby downstairs with him when he came in before dinner, and ‘way into the night they’d be in the library together, the baby laughing and crowing, or asleep on a pillow on the sofa. Why, the boy wasn’t four when he let the nurse go, and carried the child off for a month’s fishing in Canada! And when we first knew that the hip was bad, Mr. Coppered gave up his business and for five years in Europe he never let Master Duncan out of his sight. The games and the books–I should say the child had a million lead soldiers! The first thing in the morning it’d be, ‘Is Dad awake, Paul?’ and he running into the room; and at noon, coming back from his ride, ‘Is Dad home?’ Wonderful to him his father’s always been.”

“That’s why I’m afraid he’ll never like me,” Margaret was quite simple enough to say wistfully, in response. “He never laughs out or chatters, as Mr. Coppered says he used to do.”

And after such a conversation she would be especially considerate of Duncan–find some excuse for going upstairs when she heard the click of his crutch in the hall, so that he might find his father alone in the library, or excuse herself from a theatre trip so that they might be together.