“I suppose we have no right to pry. And yet, if we knew——”
“I understand. If we can place the father, we shall at least know how bad things are, and if they are or are not altogether past mending. I’ll do my best. Anything else suggest itself?”
“You will not lose sight of Philip. He needs your friendship now more than ever.”
“I’ll do my best there, too. But in his present frame of mind it is going to be a man-sized job to brother him, even a little. He thinks he has put himself beyond the pale—says so in so many words. Another man might say some such thing in a morning-after gust of remorse; but he means it.”
“That is just it,” she said sorrowfully. “He is going to punish himself a great deal more savagely than—than he needs to. That is the part of his pride that isn’t dead yet. Shall we go back now? If you don’t mind, I—I think I’d like to go home.”
“Kittie will take you there as fast as we’ll let her,” said Bromley cheerfully; and the little white mare confirmed the promise at a pace that made her driver wonder how she had ever come to be degraded to hack service in a livery string. As he was cutting the buggy at the cottage gate, Jean laid a hand on his arm.
“Please don’t say anything to Mummie or the girls,” she begged.
“Not a word,” he agreed; and then: “You mustn’t let it hit you too hard, Jeanie.”
“I’ll try not to. But you and Philip have been so good to us; and it seems such a pity!—so wretchedly unnecessary.”
“It isn’t always given to us poor blind mortals to distinguish between what is necessary and what isn’t,” he countered comfortingly. And with this restating of a truth which was hoary with age long before he was born, he drove away, wiping his brow and muttering under his breath. “Lord! I’m glad that much of it is over, anyway. She never gave me a glimpse at that stabbed little heart of hers, but I know how it hurt, just the same.” Then, apostrophizing the offender: “Phil, old boy, if you ever take a tumble to yourself and realize what you’ve done, you’ll find you’ve got something perilously resembling murder to answer for ... you certainly will, for a fact!”