“That is why I followed so close upon the heels of my letter to you,” said the father. “The crash came in a moment—it was literally a crash too, now that I think upon it, for that hot-blooded ruffian, her husband, caught one corner of the table cloth—we were at supper—and swept everything that was on the table into a corner of the room. Yes, the bill is in my portmanteau. And she took his part. Heavens above! She actually took his part. I was the scoundrel—briccone!—the coarse Italian is still ringing in my ears. It was anything but a charming duetto. He sang a basso—her upper register was terribly shrill—I had never heard it more so. Artistically the scene was a failure; but I had to run for all that. Humiliating, is it not, to be overcome by something that would, if subjected to the recognized canons of criticism, be pronounced a failure? And he swore that he would follow me and have my life. Enough. You got my letter. Fortune is on your side, my boy. You saved her life last night.”
“Whose life did I save?” asked the son. “Whose life? Heavens above! Have you been saving more than one life?”
“Not more than one—a good deal less than one. Don’t let us get into a sentimental strain, pater. You are the chartered—ah, the chartered sentimentalist of the family. Don’t try and drag me into your strain. I’m not old enough. A man cannot pose as a sentimentalist nowadays until he is approaching sixty.”
“Really? Then I shall have to pause for a year or two still. Let us put that question aside for a moment. Should I be exceeding my privileges if I were to tell you that I am ruined?—Financially ruined, I mean, of course; thank heaven, I am physically as strong as I was—ah, three years ago.”
“You said something about my allowance, I think.”
“If I did not I failed in my duty as a father, and I don’t often do that, my boy—thank God, I don’t often do that.”
“No,” said Harold. “If the whole duty of a father is comprised in acquainting his son with the various reductions that he says he finds it necessary to make in his allowance, you are the most exemplary of fathers, pater.”
“There is a suspicion of sarcasm—or what is worse, epigram in that phrase,” said the father. “Never mind, you cannot epigram away the stern fact that I have now barely a sufficient income to keep body and soul together. I wish you could.”
“So do I,” said Harold. “But yours is a ménage à trois. It is not merely body and soul with your but body, soul, and sentiment—it is the third element that is the expensive one.”
“I dare say you are right. Anyhow, I grieve for your position, my boy. If it had pleased Heaven to make me a rich man, I would see that your allowance was a handsome one.”