THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN
And over them both ... hung the moon and stars.
Frontispiece. See page 34.
THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN
A NOVEL
BY
COSMO HAMILTON
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
GEORGE O. BAKER
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1916
Copyright, 1916,
By Cosmo Hamilton.
All rights reserved
Published, October, 1916
THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
To
MY WIFE
CONTENTS
THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN
[1]
PART ONE
YOUTH
[3]
I
When Peter Guthrie laughed the rooks stirred onthe old trees behind the Bodleian and the bored cab-driverswho lolled in uncomfortable attitudes on theircabs in St. Giles perked up their heads.
He threw open his door one morning and leavingone of these laughs of his rolling round the quad ofSt. John's College found the recumbent form of NicholasKenyon all among his cushions as usual, and asusual smoking his cigarettes and reading his magazines.The words "as usual" seemed to be stampedon his forehead.
"What d'you think?" cried Peter, filling the roomlike a thirty-mile gale.
"You ought to know that I don't think. It's a formof exercise that I never indulge in." Kenyon lit afresh cigarette from the one which he had half-smokedand with peculiar expertness flicked the end out of thewindow into St. Giles Street, which ran past the greatgates of the college. He hoped that it might havefallen on somebody's head, but he didn't get up to see.[4]
"Well," said Peter, "I was coming down the Highjust now and an awful pretty girl passed with a Univ.man. She looked at me—thereby very nearly layingme flat on my face—and I heard her ask, 'Who'sthat?' It was the man's answer that makes me laugh.He said: 'Oh, he's only a Rhodes scholar!'" Andoff he went again.
Nicholas Kenyon raised his immaculate person a fewinches and looked round at his friend. The Harvardman, with his six-foot-one of excellent muscles andsinews, his square shoulders and deep chest, and hisfine, honest, alert and healthy face, made most peopleask who he was. "If I'd been you," said Kenyon,"I should have made a mental no