CHAPTER IX
It was characteristic of Andrew's serviceable and soundly unimaginative intellect that it should decline to grasp such a phenomenon as a father who was rapidly approaching his own age. It accepted the fact, since the evidence was now becoming overwhelming, but it firmly refused to go an inch beyond this concession. If one were seriously to regard his conduct as the natural result of youth and high spirits, there would be in a kind of way an excuse for it; and once you started that line of reasoning, where were you? You would be pardoning beggars because they were hungry, and bankrupts because they had no money, and all kinds of things. Andrew's conceptions of justice were not to be tampered with like that. It therefore followed (since he was extremely logical) that his parent must be looked upon simply as an erring and impenitent man. His age did not matter. That was his business. His son's was to see that, whether Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw professed to be eighty or eighteen, he conducted himself in a manner befitting the head of so respectable a family and firm.
The only defect in this pre-eminently honest way of regarding the matter was that it handicapped the junior partner when it came to forecasting his parent's probable movements. If you persist in basing your calculations on the assumption that a bird ought to be too old to fly, when it actually isn't, you will probably be wrong in expecting to find it always in your garden.
Andrew let himself into the house about the hour of 8:30 a. m., and almost fell into the arms of the agitated widow.
"Have you found him? Where is he? What has happened?" she implored him.
It was another of Andrew's wholesome peculiarities that, having once distrusted a person, his suspicions could hardly be allayed, even by evidence that would have satisfied a hypochondriacal ex-detective. This safeguard against deception effectually preserved him from the dangerous extremes both of indigence and greatness. He looked upon his second cousin with a shocked and doubtful eye. She had come very close. Did she expect him to toy with her?
"Have I found who?" he inquired coldly.
"Heriot!"
"If you mean my father, I did not find him."
He looked at her sarcastically, and added, "He didn't mention that himself, of course?"
"I haven't seen him!" she almost shouted.
He looked thoroughly startled now.
"Hasn't he been here?"
"He was only in the house for an hour. That was the day before yesterday. He didn't let me know he was here—he didn't let his sister know—nobody knew but Jean!"
"Where was he staying?"
"At an hotel."
"An hotel!" exclaimed Andrew in horror. "Going to all that expense, with his house standing waiting for him? That beats everything I've heard yet! Is he there still?"
"No, no, he's not!" she cried, almost sobbing. "He's gone back to London."
"Gone back to London!"
"And Jean's gone with him!"
"Jean! Has he not got enough bills to pay at that infernal millionaire's hotel without hers?"
"I don't know," wailed the lady. "I don't understand him. I thought he cared for me—and he didn't even let me know he was here!"
In spite of his anger with his erring parent, he was sufficiently master of his emotions to feel a lively concern at all this speech suggested.
"I must get my breakfast," he observed icily, and was starting for the dining-room.
She collected herself instantly.
"Andrew!" she said, "you've got to go after him."
He stared at her, first in extreme surprise, then with an exceedingly sophisticated smile.
"Thank you, I've got my business to attend to."
"You can go to the office first. There's a train about two."
"I'll not be on it," he replied.
"Some one's got to go and fetch him back."
"It won't be me."
She looked at him for a moment with an expression which did not interest him. He neither professed to understand women nor to think it worth while trying.
"Very well," she answered.
They went in to breakfast, but throughout the meal she never referred to Heriot again. Andrew flattered himself he had choked her off that subject.