He built the ornate villa at The Beaches and, like Lawford, preferred to live there rather than elsewhere. His wife and the older girls insisted upon having a town house in Boston and in traveling at certain times to more or less exclusive resorts and to Europe. Their one ambition was to get into that exclusive social set in which they felt their money should rightfully place them. But a house on the Back Bay does not always assure one's entrance to the circles of the "gilded codfish."
Mr. Tapp went down to the dock again after a time. Lawford had the Merry Andrew all ready to set out on the proposed fishing trip. The sloop was a pretty craft, clinker built, and about the fastest sailing boat within miles of Cardhaven. Lawford was proud of her.
"So you're back at last, are you?" snapped the Salt Water Taffy King.
He was a portly little man with a red face and a bald brow. His very strut pronounced him a self-made man. He glared at his son, whose cool nonchalance he often declared was impudence.
"I've been waiting some time for you, dad. Hop aboard," Lawford calmly said.
"You took your time in getting back here," responded his father, by no means mollified. "And you knew I was waiting. But you had to stand and talk to a girl over there. Cicely says it is that picture actress who is staying at Cap'n Abe's. Is that so?"
"I presume Cicely is right," his son answered. "There is no other here at present to my knowledge."
"Of all things!" ejaculated Mr. Tapp. "You are always making some kind of a fool of yourself, Lawford. Don't, for pity's sake, be that kind of a fool."
"What do you mean, dad?" and now the young man's eyes flashed. It was seldom that Lawford turned upon his father in anger.
"You know very well what I mean. Keep away from such women. Don't get messed up with actor people. I won't have it, I tell you! I am determined that at least one rich man's son shall not be the victim of the wiles of any of these stage women."