She cheered up, and smiled again, but shook her head. “I never can bear to see you go—that’s the most of it. I’m a little bothered about your father, too.”
“Why?”
“It seems to me he looks so badly. Everybody thinks so.”
“What nonsense!” George laughed. “He’s been looking that way all summer. He isn’t much different from the way he’s looked all his life, that I can see. What’s the matter with him?”
“He never talks much about his business to me but I think he’s been worrying about some investments he made last year. I think his worry has affected his health.”
“What investments?” George demanded. “He hasn’t gone into Mr. Morgan’s automobile concern, has he?”
“No,” Isabel smiled. “The ‘automobile concern’ is all Eugene’s, and it’s so small I understand it’s taken hardly anything. No; your father has always prided himself on making only the most absolutely safe investments, but two or three years ago he and your Uncle George both put a great deal—pretty much everything they could get together, I think—into the stock of rolling-mills some friends of theirs owned, and I’m afraid the mills haven’t been doing well.”
“What of that? Father needn’t worry. You and I could take care of him the rest of his life on what grandfather—”
“Of course,” she agreed. “But your father’s always lived so for his business and taken such pride in his sound investments; it’s a passion with him. I—”
“Pshaw! He needn’t worry! You tell him we’ll look after him: we’ll build him a little stone bank in the backyard, if he busts up, and he can go and put his pennies in it every morning. That’ll keep him just as happy as he ever was!” He kissed her. “Good-night, I’m going to tell Lucy good-bye. Don’t sit up for me.”