The white hand of the girl touched his lips.
“You’ll be rich some day, Ray dear, and it is foolish to blame daddy.”
The young man growled something under the hand, and then laughed a little bitterly.
“Dad has tried every get-rich-quick scheme that the mind and ingenuity of man——”
“And why?”
The voice was harsh, tremulous with anger. None of them had noticed the reappearance of John Bennett.
“You’re doing work you don’t like. My God! What of me? I’ve been trying for twenty years to get out. I’ve tried every silly scheme—that’s true. But it was for you——”
He stopped abruptly at the sight of Gordon’s embarrassment.
“I invited you to dinner, and I’m pulling out the family skeleton,” he said with rough good-humour.
He took Dick’s arm and led him down the garden path between the serried ranks of rose bushes.