"Indeed." The response was indifferent. "Why should that be? Does Mrs. Larrabee want them all?"
"It's on account of his voice," said Kathleen.
The tired man of affairs removed his cigar to laugh while his daughter arranged his hair around his temples. "Edgar denying himself!" he ejaculated quietly.
"Yes, father, he's waking up to it," said the girl, with a little serious nod; "and that's one thing Mrs. Larrabee has really done for him—made him believe that his voice is worth working for."
"It's the only thing she can find to flatter him about. That's all that amounts to," said Mr. Fabian, resuming his cigar. "So long as she can make any use of him she will keep him dangling about, and flattery is the best bait."
"But his voice is a real gift," insisted Kathleen, with deliberate emphasis. "Don't you think so?"
"I never heard him sing that I know of—certainly not for years."
"It is beautiful—the heart-reaching kind. If he hadn't been a rich man's son it would have been given to the world in some shape."
"A rich man's son." Mr. Fabian repeated the words quietly, and took his daughter's arm in a strong grasp. "Kathleen, this has been an awful winter. I don't know what the next year will bring forth. Say nothing to your mother, but there are threatening clouds all about me."