“Promises,” said Mrs. Lipsett, “are like pie-crusts—made to be broken.”
“Not mine,” returned Francis, as he bowed himself out.
Annie took him to the door and said:
“I only want to get away, sir. I only want to get away.”
Francis looked into her eager face. She was almost very pretty, and her eagerness was very touching. He was moved and a lump came into his throat, and tears filled his eyes, and he said:
“God bless you, my dear. You shall.”
She bowed her head as he passed out, and as he heard the latch click he said to himself:
“Surely she has suffered enough.”
And he felt a purely masculine anger against Frederic, anger which oozed and trickled away on the instant, for, as he turned up the street, he saw his son waiting for him at the corner. As he walked up the street he called Frederic poltroon, scoundrel, blackguard, lecher, debauchee, wastrel, but none of these words could revive his anger. As he came face to face with his son he found another word—play-actor, and if he had sympathy for Annie, the betrayed, he had pity for Frederic, her betrayer. She could suffer, had suffered. Frederic could feel nothing at all.
“After all,” thought Francis, “he is my son. I have had my share in making him what he is.”