Mr. Denslow read the letter with indifference, but the accompanying check had weight. He was coming to believe that his daughter had made a first-rate investment when she went to look after her interests in Olive Hill, and incidentally acquired a husband who could make good in New York in six months.
Judith followed Lary to his room, whither he had retreated to read the letters from home. One glance at his face satisfied her that all was not well. A moment he wavered, on the point of thrusting that disturbing letter out of sight. Then he recognized, in his feeling, not loyalty to his mother but a raw personal chagrin. Judith was his wife. She had earned the right to share even his humiliation. Yet he dared not look at her while she read the closely written pages.
His father was breaking. It was his duty to come home and assume the burden, now that the reason for his absence from Springdale, with Judith and Eileen, had been removed by an unhoped-for act of Providence. The building of a great place like the Marksley home was too much for David, who never could shoulder responsibility. She had tried to fire his ambition—make him see how proud he ought to be, to get a chance to put up such fine buildings. It was wasted breath. He went about as if he had a sack of concrete on his shoulders. He would certainly have to forfeit money on the contract. She was outdone with him, and must have help.
“Dearest, cable your father to throw over that contract, no matter what it costs. Can’t she see that his soul is being ground—because of you and Eileen?”
“I couldn’t send such a cablegram, dear. I didn’t want ever to see Springdale again. You and Eileen can stay on here with your mother.”
“But, Lary, I shouldn’t mind Springdale. David and Theo are there—and an arbour with a summer house—and Indian Summer coming. It would be worth all the rest ... a cheap price to pay, for another such afternoon as we had last November, on the road to Littlefield. Is it always as glorious as that, Lary?”
“Usually, but not always. I remember, once when I was a young boy, there was no frost at all until the first week of December. The glorious tints and that silver haze in the air are the result of a heavy frost that catches the foliage in full sap. But that year—it was the winter Theo was born—the trees were a sickly gray-green, and all the shrubs and vines looked as if they were suffering from some wasting disease. The leaves had shrivelled, and still they clung. The morning after the frost they fell like rain. Within three days the branches were stark and bare. It was absolutely startling.”
“You had no crimson and gold, no chiffon webs on the grass?”
“Not that year. It was an open winter, with a frost late in the spring, that killed all the fruit. Don’t set your heart on—I mean, dear, don’t go back to Springdale ... just for the Indian Summer.”
“I was going, Lary, to comfort your father.”