“I don’t mean for the house. D——n it, that’s gone to smash. I mean for myself. May, for your poor brother Abel. You might just try.”
He lay back and looked at her ruefully.
“Aunt Dagon,” she said, quietly, “we had better go out of the room. Abel, don’t you come up stairs while you are in this state. I know all that Uncle Lawrence has done for father and you, and he will do nothing more. Do you expect him to pay your gambling debts?” she asked, indignantly.
Abel raised himself fiercely, while the bad blackness filled his eyes.
“D——d old hunks!” he shouted.
But nobody heard. Mrs. Dagon and May Newt had closed the door, and Abel was left alone.
“It’s no use,” he said, moodily and aloud, but still thickly. “I can’t help it. I shall have to do just as Belch wishes. But he must help me. If he expects me to serve him, he must serve me. He says he can—buy off—Bodley—and then—why, then—devil take it!” he said, vacantly, with heavy eyes, “then—then—oh yes!” He smiled a maudlin smile. “Oh yes! I shall be a great—a great—great—man—I’ll be—rep—rep—sentive—ofs—ofs—dear pe—pe.”
His head fell like a lump upon the cushion of the sofa, and he breathed heavily, until the solemn, dark, formal parlor smelled like a bar-room.