Bob looked startled. He didn’t like the way she had shifted the conversation. “Pretty bad,” he answered.
“I believe, though, it’s customary for men on the ‘street’ not to stay ‘downed,’ as they say?”
“Don’t know as it’s an invariable rule,” returned Bob evasively. Then realizing it wouldn’t do to be evasive: “As a matter of fact, I don’t believe I’m very well posted as to that,” he added.
“What does your father say?” she asked abruptly.
Bob would much rather not have talked about that with her. But—“Dad says there is no hope,” he had to say.
Miss Gerald was silent for a moment. As a child she remembered a very gloomy period in her own father’s career—when the “street” had him “cornered.” She remembered the funereal atmosphere of the big old house—the depression on nearly every one’s face—how everything had seemed permeated with impending tragedy. She remembered how her father looked at her, a great gloomy ghost of himself with somber burning eyes. She remembered how seared and seamed his strong and massive face had become in but a few days. But that was long ago and he had long since left her for good. The vivid impression, however, of that gloomy period during her childhood remained with her. It had always haunted her, though her father had not been “downed” in the end. He had emerged from the storm stronger than ever.
The girl shot a sidewise look at Bob, standing now with his arms folded like Hamlet. Perhaps he had come from such a funereal house as she, herself, so well remembered? Had dad’s trouble, or tragedy, weighed on him unduly? Had it made him—for the moment—just slightly irresponsible? Miss Gerald, as has been intimated, had frankly liked Bob as an outdoor companion, or an indoor one, too, sometimes, for that matter. He was one of the few men, for example, she would “trot” with. He could “trot” in an eminently respectful manner, being possessed of an innate refinement, or chivalry, which certainly seemed good to her, after some of those other wild Terpsichorean performances of myriad masculine manikins in the mad world of Milliondom.
“I suppose your father has taken his trouble much to heart?” Miss Gerald now observed.
“Not a bit.”
“No?” In surprise.