The Prodigal Father Part 27

"And that's why you are suddenly so curious about Frank?"

He regarded her in injured silence; but instead of appearing affected by his unspoken reproach, she continued with an air of knowing both his intentions and her own.

"If father wanted you to know he would have told you himself."

"It is for his own sake I want to find out."

"Then you admit you were trying to find out about father! What benefit would it be to him if you knew?"

"It is most inconvenient at the office not knowing his address."

"If it really were very inconvenient, father would be certain to think of that and send you his address himself."

"He has not thought of it."

"Well then, there can't be any great inconvenience."

Not for the first time in his life Andrew wished that all humanity belonged to his own sensible, candid, trustworthy s.e.x.

"I tell you there is," he insisted.

"I trust father implicitly," she replied.

"Oh, you think his recent behavior has been the kind of thing to inspire confidence?"

"It has in me!" she answered enthusiastically.

"You have a high opinion of his sense," he sneered.

"A great deal higher than I have of anybody else's in the world--in Edinburgh, anyhow!" she retorted, and with her chin held high broke off the conference.

This was sufficiently exasperating, but it was not the worst that treacherous s.e.x could do. The widow's demeanor was a hundred times more menacing. She was so motherly towards Jean, so sisterly towards his unfortunate aunt, so skittishly condescending towards himself, that his previous suspicions of her were sunshiny compared with the dark convictions that lay heavier upon him each day. Her black eyes danced mockingly whenever he looked into them; she seemed always to be hugging the most delicious secret. Andrew doubted she had hugged more than a secret in this house.

It was a further confirmation of her perfidy that ever since his father's flight she had made a point of being down to breakfast before him, so that he could never see what letters she received. That was d.a.m.ning evidence against her--d.a.m.nable evidence, in fact, for it argued a degree both of intelligence and energy for which he had not given her credit. Like his father before him, he was discovering that there was more up this sparkling lady's sleeve than met the eye.

A few mornings after the disappearance he thought he had caught her.

When he entered the room she was reading a letter. He snapped up the chance instantly.

"Is that my father's writing?" he inquired, dissimulating his acuteness under an easy conversational air.

"It's a little like it," she replied, with an amiable smile, slipping the letter into its envelop and turning that face downwards on the table.

The W.S. began to respect as much as he detested her. All through breakfast she rippled with the happiest smiles and the gayest conversation. At the end, his detestation had again got its head in front of his respect.

But the following morning he himself received a letter which threw the widow and her smiles so completely into the background that for the next forty-eight hours he was scarcely aware of her existence. It ran thus:

250 BURY STREET, ST. JAMES', S.W.

"MY DEAR ANDREW,--It is with the greatest concern and regret that I feel myself compelled to write to you on the subject of my old friend, your poor father. No doubt you will be able to judge better than myself how far he is responsible for his conduct, and whether or not there is any serious need for anxiety; but I consider I should be doing less than my duty if I failed to inform you of the risks to his health and his reputation which he is running at present. I spent last night with him; in fact, it was only in the small hours of this morning that I left him still dancing at the Covent Garden Fancy Ball. I a.s.sure you I am at a loss how to express my consternation and alarm at his peculiar behavior. Are you aware that he has taken to dyeing his hair and doctoring his face, so that at first sight one might almost mistake him for a much younger man than we know him to be? The extravagance of his language and restlessness of his movements lends color to the suspicion that he is a little wrong in his head. I do not wish to alarm you unnecessarily, but if you had seen him galloping about in a domino and a false nose at two o'clock in the morning I cannot help thinking you would share my concern. He seems also to have lost all his old caution about money matters. Are you aware that he is stopping at the Hotel Gigantique, of all places, and doing himself and your brother Frank like a couple of millionaires? I cannot help considering this a very remarkable symptom.

"I myself am in bed to-day, so pray forgive the handwriting.--With kind regards to you all, believe me, yours sincerely,

"CHARLES MUNRO."

The firmament seemed to darken as though a thunderstorm brooded over the devoted house. Already in fancy Andrew could hear the first crashings and flashes of the coming scandal. His appet.i.te vanished, his coffee grew cold, and presently he rose and silently left the room. Yet the man of superior mental equipment rarely fails to extract some crumbs of consolation out of the direst disaster. Andrew extracted his by summoning Jean before he started for the office and handing her the terrible letter. As he watched her read it, the phrase shaped by his countenance might be read without the aid of any signal-book--

"What did I tell you?"

Certainly there was a well-earned morsel of satisfaction to be derived from her startled eyes and the little catches in her breath. She could believe him now! When she spoke at last her first words were exceedingly gratifying.

"What a horrid old man he must be!"

He looked suitably reproachful.

"That is strong language to use of your father."

Her eyes blazed.

"I am talking of Colonel Munro! The idea of giving father away like that. It's one of the very meanest things I ever heard of! I sincerely hope he may be in bed for a month."

She swept away, and her brother was left to brood gloomily upon the selfish perversity that thus actually defrauded him of his legitimate triumph.

CHAPTER VII

"Well," said Andrew, "what is to be done?"

The problem was undoubtedly delicate. He had paid it the compliment of summoning his two sensible married sisters to aid him with their counsel; and even they, though not lacking in decision as a rule, regarded first the Colonel's letter and then their brother with disturbed and doubtful eyes. He gave them no hint of the dreadful and disreputable change in their father's very being; that was positively too shocking to confide even to a sister (besides, they wouldn't have believed him), but he considered that the essentials of the problem were now fairly grasped by them both, and he was pleased to find a sympathetic unanimity of horror.

"He can't be allowed to go on disgracing himself in London; that much is perfectly clear," said Mrs. Ramornie.

"Not to speak of ruining us all," added Andrew.

"Can you not go and fetch him home?" asked Mrs. Donaldson.

Andrew pursed his lips.

"In the first place, would he come? You know how infernally obstinate he can be. In the second place, do we want him making an exhibition of himself here?"

"He would not have quite the opportunities here."

"Not for spending money, I admit; but we don't want him taking the chair and making speeches at the W.S. dinner to-morrow night in his present condition."

"Will he not remember and come back for it, anyhow?" suggested Mrs.

Ramornie.