“I wish Jack wouldn't stand with his hat off until I get aboard the train,” she had told Garry one day shortly after their arrival—“he makes me so conspicuous. And he wears such queer clothes. He was in his slouch hat and rough flannel shirt and high boots the other day and looked like a tramp.”
“Better not laugh at Jack, Cory,” Garry had replied; “you'll be taking your own hat off to him one of these days; we all shall. Arthur Breen missed it when he let him go. Jack's queer about some things, but he's a thoroughbred and he's got brains!”
“He insulted Mr. Breen in his own house, that's why he let him go,” snapped Corinne. The idea of her ever taking off her hat, even figuratively, to John Breen, was not to be brooked,—not for an instant.
“Yes, that's one way of looking at it, Cory, but I tell you if Arthur Breen had had Jack with him these last few months—ever since he left him, in fact,—and had listened once in a while to what Jack thought was fair and square, the firm of A. B. & Co. would have a better hold on things than they've got now; and he wouldn't have dropped that million either. The cards don't always come up the right way, even when they're stacked.”
“It just served my stepfather right for not giving us some of it, and I'm glad he lost it,” Corinne rejoined, her anger rising again. “I have never forgiven him for not making me an allowance after I married, and I never will. He could, at least, have continued the one he always gave me.”
Garry winked sententiously, and remarked in reply that he might be making the distinguished money-bags an allowance himself one of these fine days, and he could if some of the things he was counting on came out top side up, but Corinne's opinions did not change either toward Jack or her stepfather.
CHAPTER XIX
When the pain in Jack's heart over Ruth became unbearable, there was always one refuge left—one balm which never failed to soothe, and that was Peter.
For though he held himself in readiness for her call, being seldom absent lest she might need his services, their constrained intercourse brought with it more pain than pleasure. It was then that he longed for the comfort which only his dear mentor could give.