“Who spoiled me, I wonder?” she said, looking at him with a gleam of humor in her eyes.
“We’re not calling names to-night,” he answered, “anyway, not since Gene’s gone. All my desire to throw things and be ugly vanishes when that boy gets out. So the noises at Rocky Bar kept you awake?”
“Yes, and I was wakeful, anyway.”
She looked down at her cup, stirring her coffee. He thought she appeared conscious and said,
“What made you wakeful, guilty conscience?”
“Guilty conscience!” she repeated in a tone that was full of indignant surprise. “Why should I have a guilty conscience?”
“Lord knows! Don’t fire off these conundrums at me. I don’t know all your secrets, honey.”
She did not answer. He glanced furtively at her and saw that her face had flushed. He took a cigar from the box the butler had set at his elbow and bit off the end:
“How should I know the secrets of a young lady like you? A long time ago, perhaps, I used to, after your mother died and you were my little Rosey, fourteen years old. Lord, how cunning you were then! Just beginning to lengthen out, a little woman and a little girl, both in one. You didn’t have secrets in those days or wakeful nights either.”
He applied a match to the end of the cigar and drew at it, his ears strained for his daughter’s reply. She again made none and he shot a quick glance at her. She was still stirring her coffee, her eyebrows drawn together, her eyes on the swirl of brown in the cup. He settled himself in his chair, a bulky figure, his clothes ribbed with creases, his head low between his shoulders, and a reek of cigar smoke issuing from his lips.