A parlormaid enters with a visitor's card. Roebuck takes it, and nods, pleased. Evidently a welcome caller.
| ramsden | Shew him up. |
The parlormaid goes out and returns with the visitor.
| the maid | Mr Robinson, |
Mr Robinson is really an uncommonly nice looking young fellow. He must, one thinks, be the jeune premier; for it is not in reason to suppose that a second such attractive male figure should appear in one story. The slim, shapely frame, the elegant suit of new mourning, the small head and regular features, the pretty little moustache, the frank clear eyes, the wholesome bloom on the youthful complexion, the well brushed glossy hair, not curly, but of fine texture and good dark color, the arch of good nature in the eyebrows, the erect forehead and neatly pointed chin, all announce the man who will love and suffer later on. And that he will not do so without sympathy is guaranteed by an engaging sincerity and eager modest serviceableness which stamp him as a man of amiable nature. The moment he appears, Ramsden's face expands into fatherly liking and welcome, an expression which drops into one of decorous grief as the young man approaches him with sorrow in his face as well as in his black clothes. Ramsden seems to know the nature of the bereavement. As the visitor advances silently to the writing table, the old man rises and shakes his hand across it without a word: a long, affectionate shake which tells the story of a recent sorrow common to both.
| RAMSDEN | [concluding the handshake and cheering up] Well,
well, Octavius, it's the common lot. We must all face it some day. Sit down. |
Octavius takes the visitor's chair. Ramsden replaces himself in his own.
| OCTAVIUS | Yes: we must face it, Mr Ramsden. But I
owed him a great deal. He did everything for me that my father could have done if he had lived. |
| RAMSDEN | He had no son of his own, you see. |
| OCTAVIUS | But he had daughters; and yet he was as good |
