“Well, she’s a tiresome creature, and there’s no gettin’ away from that,” conceded Clara. “But you shouldn’t tease her, Eugene, when you know it upsets her. I daresay she’s got a lot more to put up with than any of us realise. She’s worried too about Clay’s havin’ to come home, which isn’t what she wants. You leave her alone!”
“If she doesn’t want Clay to come home I can even sympathise with her,” replied Eugene. “Though I should hardly have expected Faith to show such good taste, I must say.”
“Now, that’s enough!” said Clara severely. “The doctor’s been here, and he says your father can’t go on like this.”
“He’s been doing it for a good many years,” said Eugene, selecting a fat Egyptian cigarette from his case, and lighting it.
Clara rubbed her nose. “Well, that’s what I say, but I’m sure I don’t know what’s got into the man, for I never knew him quite so wild as he is this year. He’s goin’ on as though someone had wound him up, and he couldn’t stop.”
“Yes, I thought he seemed distinctly above himself,” said Eugene, with detached interest. “Perhaps he’ll have a stroke, or something. That ought to please a good many of our number.”
Clara ignored this rider. “If this story you’ve got hold of about Bart is true, he’ll very likely burst a bloodvessel,” she said. “I don’t like it at all, Eugene, and that’s the truth.”
“Personally, I feel that Loveday is just the sort of wife to suit Bart down to the ground,” replied Eugene, blowing smoke-rings, and lazily watching them float upwards. “Not, of course, that the rest of the family is likely to see it in that light. You’re all so hidebound.”
“Now, don’t you go backin’ him up!” Clara begged him. “There’ll be trouble enough without you addin’ to it. I never liked that gal.”
As Eugene showed no disposition to continue the discussion, she relapsed into silence. That she was unusually disturbed, however, was seen by her working nearly an inch of her crochet-pattern wrong, a thing no one had known her to do before.