“Evening, John Cabot.”
“Jack Cabot, good evening.” In an effortful murmur the older John made his usual reply.
“And you, ’Lores—— I am glad you are both—— Don’t have anyone else——” Jack’s voice dwindled. Then soon he roused again. “If a picture was taken—of my heart, it would show—just two faces, John’s and ’Lores’. You’ll take my place, John—with Lores? You’ll try to make her happy—like I meant to do? She never was—happy, you know—until she and Dick and I——”
The father’s whispered reassurance Dolores tried not to hear, just as she tried not to see the look on his face. But without ears or eyes she must have heard and seen. Her heart was near breaking with grief for the two Johns.
“Anything you decide—all right with me. I can trust—her with you. I’d like to see—my dog.”
Dolores lifted the young Airedale, which had been biting at her skirt, to the edge of the bed and kept her hand on his collar while he wobbled over the coverlet and licked, in his boisterous, insinuating way, the outstretched hand of “his boy.” Soon she drew him away and replaced him on the floor, from where he whimpered and coaxed to get up again.
John, the while, had replaced the rose in his son’s searching hand.
They two sat watching the fingers that began to tear apart its petals.
“You are wasting your rose, Jackie dear,” Dolores said, to keep his thoughts distracted from the puppy.
He paused, but evidently not at her protest. The twittering of his canary in the other room seemed to disturb him.