He nodded. "And so I feel justified in talking to you frankly—not that I want to prejudice you against Francis, you understand, but just because"—his head wagged soberly—"Francis won't do!" And he looked at me steadily.
Something like a sharp pain struck through me. Again—and this time from her own father! I just sat there kind of frozen, you know, except that I could feel the smile slowly loosening in my face. He moved to a seat nearer.
"I don't like to seem to be disparaging my own flesh and blood, Mr. Lightnut," he proceeded gravely, "but the truth is Francis is the only one of my children that gives me any anxiety."
"Oh!" I felt myself shrink together, my knees slanting away from him. My dashed monocle hung limp.
He angled closer. "Jack's drinking is bad—that I admit, but perhaps—h'm—he comes by it naturally; still Jack has never forgotten that he is a gentleman—the son of a gentleman—and has never been what you would call fast, but—" His chest lifted under a deep breath—"but Francis—whew!"
"Fast—Frances?" It faltered tremulously from my lips; my cigar dropped with a soft thud.
His eyes widened. "Oh, yes—frightfully!" And he tendered me another cigar, and I had to light it—he made me! "Of course, the mistake was in ever sending Francis away to school—not always a wise thing, Mr. Lightnut, especially when the home life has been too cloistered. I think the reaction was too much for one so green and inexperienced as Francis. And extravagance—my!" He lifted his hands. "I thought Jack was bad enough at Cambridge with a thousand-dollar apartment on the 'Gold Coast,' as you call it—and, by George, you Harvard men have got the right name for it!—but Francis beat that in one term's drain on me for poker losses and—"
"Poker?" I moistened my lips. Then I brightened, for perhaps he meant bridge—and that was good form, for there was my Aunt Julia, who lived by it—fact! But his head shook impatiently when I suggested that he meant this.
"Bridge!" he exploded. "Why, Francis doesn't know bridge from casino! Poker, I tell you, and faro—and all the rest. The plucking was done nightly at a certain—er—club, the establishment of a gentleman by the name of McGinty—'Spot' McGinty—oh, you know the place, then?"
For I had gasped audibly. "Only—only by reputation," I responded hastily.