That's my sort of idea, father, but of course one doesn't know ..." Martin trailed off into inconsequent words.

It was as though his father were waiting for him to commit himself and would then suddenly leap upon him with "There! Now, you've betrayed yourself.

I've caught you--" and he had simply nothing to betray, nothing to conceal.
But anything was better than these pauses during which the threats and anticipations piled up and up, making a monstrous figure out of exactly nothing at all.
It was not enough to tell himself that between every father and son there were restraints and hesitations, a division cleft by the remembrance of the time when one had commanded and the other obeyed.
There were other elements here--for one the element of an old affection that had once been at the very root of the boy's soul and was now in the strangest way creeping back to him, as an old familiar, but forgotten form might creep out of the dark and sit at his feet and clasp his knees.
"Well," said John Warlock.

"That's very pleasant.

You must feel very grateful to your aunt Rachel, Martin; she's given you the opportunity of doing what you like with your life.