But I could only stare dumbly at him across the table.
"Come, come," he continued. "How goes the gossip now? Surely there is more about me. Surely you have heard"—he paused to drain the dregs in his glass—"the rest?"
I eyed him for a moment in silence before I answered, but he met my glance fairly, indulging apparently in the same curiosity, half idle, half cynical, that he might have displayed before some episode of the theatre. It was a useless question that he asked. He knew too well that the answer was obvious.
"Yes," I said, "I have heard it."
"So," he exclaimed cheerfully, "my reputation still continues. Wonderful, is it not, how durable a bad reputation is, and how fragile a good one. One bounds back like a rubber ball. The other shatters like a lustre punch bowl. And did the same young man—I presume he was young—enlighten you about this, the most fatal parental weakness?"
"No," I said, "I learned of it later."
He raised his hand and began gently stroking his coat lapel, his fingers quickly crossing it in a vain search for some imaginary wrinkle, moving back and forth with a steady persistence, while he watched me, still amused, still indifferent.
"And might I ask who told you?" he inquired.
"Your brother-in-law," I replied, "My Uncle Jason."
"Dieu!" cried my father, "but I grow careless."