Dan came forward from his place before the fire. “Why, Harlan!” he exclaimed. “I thought you went to spend the evening with grandma.”
“I did,” Harlan returned, and added pointedly: “Several hours ago!”
“But it isn’t late, is it?”
“No,” Martha said quickly;—“it isn’t. Won’t you both please sit down and let me give you some coffee?”
“Really——” Harlan began, but she checked him and had her way; though Dan did not sit down. Instead, he returned to the fireplace with the coffee she gave him. “What I was tryin’ to explain to Fred when you came in,” he said;—“it was something I don’t think he understood at all, but I believe you would, Martha.”
“I beg you; I beg you,” the courtly Frederic interposed. “I was never gifted, yet I understood you perfectly. You said, ‘If we lose that, we lose everything.’ I think you must have been speaking of champagne.”
“No, no,” Dan said, and for a moment appeared to be slightly annoyed; then he brightened. “I told you several times I meant our work for the new generation. The minute a man gets to be a father he belongs to the old generation, and the only use he is, it’s to plan for the new one. From then on, that’s what his whole life ought to be—just buildin’ up the world for his son. Now you take this boy o’ mine——”
“Excuse me,” his cousin interrupted earnestly. “You’re referring now to the one who was born late this afternoon?”
“I mean my boy!” Dan replied; and his face glowed with the triumphant word. “I have a son! Didn’t you know it?”
“It’s been mentioned, I believe, during the evening,” Frederic answered. “Excuse me, pray.”