That night Mrs. Vincent asked him to dine with her, but he declined on the score of an engagement with a friend. He and Shelby dined in Washington and during that meal he made just one allusion to Nelly and her surroundings.
"It's all very well for a man to make a plumb fool of himself and waste his life if he's a-mind to, but he ain't got any business to drag other folks along with him. If I hadn't a-been a fool among fools I might a-been sittin' beside my little girl this minute, and not be scared to either, Shelby. My dad used to say something about 'man being his own star,' I don't recollect it all, but I know it meant he could be one of the first magnet if he'd a mind to. I set out to be a comet, I reckon, all hot air tail, and there isn't much of me left worth looking at."
"How old are you!"
"Forty-four."
"Well, you've got twenty-five years to the good yet. Now get busy for the little girl's sake."
"Shake," cried Jim Bolivar, extending his hand across the table.
Meanwhile back yonder at the school, Friday night being "home letters night" the girls were all busily writing, but Helen kept the monogram upon her paper carefully concealed.
