"I've—the fact is I've something you ought to know." I could hear Sue in the other room.
"All right, my boy," he said nervously. As he followed me he kept clearing his throat. Sue must have guessed and prepared him. In his room he fussed about, grunted hard over getting off his shoes and, finding his slippers, then lay back on his sofa with his hands behind his head and uttered an explosive sigh.
"All right, son, now fire ahead," he said jocosely. I loved him at that moment.
"You know Eleanore Dillon," I began.
"She turned you down!"
"No! She took me!"
"The devil you say!" He sat bolt upright, staring. "Well, my boy, I'm very glad," he said thickly. His eyes were moist. "I'm glad—glad! She's a fine girl—strong character—strong! I wish your poor mother were alive—she'd be happy—this girl will make a good wife—you must bring her right here to live with us!"
And so he talked on, his voice trembling. Then out of his confusion rose the money question, and at once his mind grew clear. And to my surprise he urged me to lose no time in looking around for "some good, steady position" in a magazine office. My writing I could do at night.
"It's so uncertain at best," he said. "It's nothing you can count on. And you've got to think of a wife and children. Her father has no money saved."
I found he'd been looking Dillon up, and this jarred on me horribly. But still worse was his lack of faith in my writing. I was making four hundred dollars a month, and it was a most unpleasant jolt to have it taken so lightly.