"About the dinner, Sunday."
"I don't know, exactly. I said—something; yes, I think. I meant it for yes—then." The man spoke with sudden utter weariness.
There was another brief silence. A dawning shrewdness was coming into Helen's eyes.
"Oh, of course, yes. We'd want to go," she murmured. "It might mean he was giving in, couldn't it?"
There was no reply.
"Do you think he was giving in?"
Still no reply.
Helen scowled.
"Burke, why in the world don't you answer me?" she demanded crossly. "You were talkative enough a minute ago, when you came in. I should think you might have enough thought of my interests to want us to go to live with your father, if there's any chance of it. And while 'twouldn't be my way to jump the minute he held out his hand, yet if this dinner really means that we'll be going up there to live pretty soon, why—"
"Helen!" Burke had winced visibly, as if from a blow. "Can't you see anything, or talk anything, but our going up there to live? It's enough for me that dad just looked at me to-night with the old look in his eyes; that somehow he's smashed that confounded wall between us; that— But what's the use? Never mind the dinner. We won't go."