“It is perfectly plain. He has found his father.”
“You think that is it?”
“I am sure of it.”
“But, even so—” he began.
“Don’t you see? He hasn’t—he didn’t find things as he hoped to find them. Don’t you know him well enough to know what that would do to him?”
It was said coolly enough, almost coldly; and Bromley marvelled. He had never imagined she could be so dispassionate. Before he could pull himself around to some half-way adequate matching of her mood, she went on:
“Philip has always walked in a very narrow and straight path for himself, and he is very proud, in his own way. If something has happened to break his pride.... I know that is what has happened; I am sure of it.”
The play-boy drew a deep breath. The worst was over, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as he had feared it would be. Either she didn’t care, any more than a friendly soul should care, or she had more adamantine self-control than had fallen to the share of any other woman he had ever known.
“I’m going up after him to-night,” he said. “When I get him back here you’ll have to help me.”
“Of course—if I can,” she agreed. “But if it is as I think it is, I’m afraid neither of us will be able to help him very much.”