"And suppose"—Martin's face grew grimmer—"suppose she goes under?"
"She will come to me—she promised. I am prepared to go as far as I can with my girls on their way; not mine. That was part of my bargain with God when I took them."
"You're a very strange and risky woman, Doris."
"And you are going to be fair, David, dear. Now tell me about your boy."
Instantly Martin was taken off guard. He smiled broadly and patted Doris's hand, which lay upon his arm.
"Bud's coming out on top!" he said—Clive Cameron was always Bud to Martin. "I've kept closemouthed about the boy," he went on, forgetting Joan; "he's meant a lot to me, but I've always recognized the possibility of failure with him and felt the least I could do, if things came to the worst, was to leave an exit for him to slip out of, unnoticed. He's always kept us guessing—my sister and I. He never knew his father. From a silent, observing child he ran into a stormy, vivid youth that often threatened disaster if not positive annihilation—but he's of the breed that dashes to the edge, grinds his teeth, plants his feet, and looks over!—then, breathing hard, draws back. After a while I got to banking on that balking trick of his. Once I got used to the fact that the boy meant to know life—not abuse it—I knew a few easy years while he plodded or, at times, plunged, through college.
"He couldn't settle, though, on a job, and that upset us at last. He ran the gamut of professions in his mind—but none of them appealed to him. When he was nineteen he suddenly took an interest in his father—we'd never told him much about him. Cameron wasn't a bad chap—he simply hadn't character enough to be bad—he was a floater! When Bud got that into his system, it sobered him more than if he'd been told his father was a scamp. A year later the boy came to me and said: 'Uncle David, if you don't think I'd queer your profession—I'm going to make a try at it.'"
Martin's face beamed and then he went on:
"That was a big day for me, Doris, but even when the chap went into it, I kept quiet. I feared he might balk. But he hasn't! He's big stuff—that boy of mine. He confided everything to me this time. Certain phases of the work almost drove him off—dissecting and, well, the grimmer aspects! Often, he told me, he had to put up a stiff fight with himself before he could enter a dissecting room—but that does one of two things, Doris: makes a doctor human or a brute. It has humanized Bud. He'll be through now, in a year or so, and I'm going to throw him neck and crop into my practice. I'll stand by for awhile, but I have great faith in my boy!"
Doris looked up at the grave, happy face above her own.