He shrugged his shoulders impatiently:
"You knew father, that's all," he said testily. "I wish to goodness he'd been a better husband, then you wouldn't make my life miserable by always suspecting the worst. I can't speak to a girl—I can't even look at one—that you don't jump to the ridiculous conclusion that I'm falling in love with her, or that I'm like my father. Why don't you hire Japs?"
His mother could not suppress a smile:
"They're too expensive for a boarding house. Besides, some of my lady guests might object to having them around. No—it's not you, my boy. It's our designing sex I'm afraid of. I know I'm anxious, but I don't want to lose you as I lost your father."
"You're always throwing my father at me," he answered. "Can I help it if he was a little wild? He's dead now. Why can't you let him alone?"
Rising and flinging down his newspaper with a gesture of impatience, the young man crossed the room, and, pausing at a door near the window, he leaned his head forward and listened. His mother watched him in silence. Disapproval at his behavior was plainly written on her face.
"What are you doing at that door, sir?" she demanded sharply.
Harry grinned. He knew his mother's weakness too well to be much impressed with her affected tone of severity.
"Is Miss Marsh in?" he asked, in a low tone.
A new suspicion crossed Mrs. Parkes' mind. Hilda was safe out of the way, but here was a new peril. Before this she had noticed her son staring at her young lady lodger. Dear—dear—how like his father he was!