"Richard?" he mused.
Val had long yearned to talk to Westenra of Dick Rowan, only the ban he had placed on all past things had so far prevented her. But that the day must come when no subject would be taboo between them, she felt confident.
"We could call him Dick," she said. "I once cared very much----"
Westenra turned on her like a flash, white to the lips.
"Is that the way you burn your boats?" he said, in a low, hard voice, and looked at her with furious eyes she did not know. While she stared at him in pain and amazement he rose abruptly and left the room. Slowly her eyes filled with tears. She made no further reference to the matter. She did not know what to say. It seemed she could not refer to that time and tell him who Dick was, and how good he had been to her without giving pain. Therefore it was better to be silent. On the day of the christening itself he said:
"We 'll call him Bran if you like, Val--one of Ireland's old savage kings. I think that son of yours will be some one fine some day," he added with a boyish, lovable smile, that had something of pride in it, and something of humility too, and for those words Val forgave him and was happy again. And the baby was baptised into the Holy Catholic Church under the pagan and kingly name of Bran.
CHAPTER VII
MORE WINDING PATHS
"There is a crack in everything God has made."
EMERSON.
There is a saying that during the hot weather every one in New York, except doctors and cats, leave the city. Westenra, with his yearly habit of pulling stakes and heading for Europe at the first hint of heat, had always been an exception to this rule, and he invariably advised other men that his was the only possible way to keep fit after nine months' hard work. But now, though the brazen heat beat down on to the city and burnt up through the pavements as if Pluto had lighted a special furnace under New York, Westenra laughed at his own advice and made no move to get away. Val knew why, and the knowledge etched new shadows under her salient cheek-bones. In spite of his working like a bee from morning till night, the Sanatorium being constantly full, and operations always in progress, Westenra was harassed for money. The venture did not pay. An experienced woman at the head of things could have made it pay. The stolid, lumpy German with a good hospital training grafted on to a knowledge of household affairs would have made a roaring success of it, and coined money for all concerned. Even an ordinarily good manager with free hands and no nerves might have achieved a margin of profit. The vagabond journalist not only could not make it pay, she was turning it into a dead loss. Every day good money went cantering after bad.