“Heard!” she repeated, and laughed again. “Why, Bobby, I read all the morning papers and all the evening papers, and I presume there will be excellent reading in every one of them for days and days to come.”
“And you’re not angry?” he said, astounded.
“Angry!” she laughed. “Why, you poor Bobby. I remember this Madam Villenauve perfectly, besides seeing her ten-years-ago pictures in the papers, and you don’t suppose for a minute that I could be jealous of her, do you? Moreover, I can prove by Aunt Constance and Uncle Dan that I predicted just this very thing when you first insisted upon going on the road.”
He looked around, dreading the keen satire of Uncle Dan and the incisive ridicule of Aunt Constance, but she relieved his mind of that fear.
“We were all invited out to dinner to-night, but I refused to go, for really I wanted to soften the blow for you. There is nobody in the house but myself and the servants. Now, do behave, Bobby! Wait a minute, sir! I’ve something else to crush you with. Have you seen the evening papers?”
No; the morning papers had been enough for him.
“Well, I’ll tell you what they are doing. The Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company has secured an order from the city council compelling the Brightlight Electric Company to remove their poles from Market Street.”
Bobby caught his breath sharply. Stone and Sharpe and Garland, the political manipulators of the city, and its owners, lock, stock and barrel were responsible for this. They had taken advantage of his absence.
“What a fool I have been,” he bitterly confessed, “to have taken up with this entirely irregular and idiotic enterprise, a venture of which I knew nothing whatever, and let go the serious fight I had intended to make on Stone and his crowd.”
“Never mind, Bobby,” said Agnes. “I have a suspicion that you have cut a wisdom-tooth. I rather imagined that you needed this one last folly as a sort of relapse before complete convalescence, to settle you down and bring you back to me for a more serious effort. I see that the most of your money is tied up in this embarrassing suit, and when I read that you were on your way home I went to Mr. Chalmers and got him to arrange for the release of some bonds. Following the provisions of your father’s will your next two hundred and fifty thousand is waiting for you. Moreover, Bobby, this time I want you to listen to your trustee. I have found a new business for you, one about which you know nothing whatever, but one that you must learn; I want to put a weapon into your hands with which to fight for everything you have lost.”