Very resolutely, however, he silenced this voice by recounting again to himself how really abused he was. It was a long story. It served to occupy his mind all through the unappetizing meal he tried to eat at the cheap restaurant before climbing Elm Hill.
His father greeted him cordially, and with no surprise in voice or manner—which was what Burke had expected, inasmuch as he had again fallen into the way of spending frequent evenings at the old home. To-night, however, Burke himself was constrained and ill at ease. His jaw was still firmly set and his head was still high; but his heart was beginning to fail him, and his mind was full of questionings.
How would his father take it—this proposition to stay all night? He would understand something of what it meant. He could not help but understand. But what would he say? How would he act? Would he say in actions, if not in words, that dreaded "I told you so"? Would it unseal his lips on a subject so long tabooed, and set him into a lengthy dissertation on the foolishness of his son's marriage? Burke believed that, as he felt now, he could not stand that; but he could stand less easily going back to the Dale Street flat that night. He could go to a hotel, of course. But he did not want to do that. He wanted dad. But he did not want dad—to talk.
"How's the baby?" asked John Denby, as Burke dropped himself into a chair on the cool, quiet veranda. "I thought she was not looking very well the last time Helen wheeled her up here." Always John Denby's first inquiry now was for his little granddaughter.
"Eh? The baby? Oh, she—she's all right. That is"—Burke paused for a short laugh—"she's well."
John Denby took his cigar from his lips and turned sharply.
"But she's not—all right?"
Burke laughed again.
"Oh, yes, she's all right, too, I suppose," he retorted, a bit grimly. "But she was—er—humph! Well, I'll tell you." And he gave a graphic description of his return home that night.
"Jove, what a mess!—and ink, too," ejaculated John Denby, with more than a tinge of sympathy in his voice. "How'd she ever manage to clean it up?"