“Oh, never mind what she told her. She was my half-sister and nobody knows her faults, if you can call them that, any better than I do. But so far as your brother is concerned, he was on his way to the Old Harry long before he married Eunice. She helped him up more than she pushed him down. And while we’re on the subject I might as well say the whole of it: If you hadn’t been so high and mighty and pig-headed and had lifted that hand of yours once in a while towards the last of his life he might not have failed in that little business of his. It wasn’t drink that killed him; he hadn’t touched a drop since he married Eunice. It was fightin’ to keep that business goin’ that broke him down. If he could have come to you—”
“Well, why didn’t he come to me?”
“Oh, you—you man! He didn’t come because, as you just said, you had told him never to come. You didn’t speak to him, nor his wife. And he was a Townsend, too, and as proud as the rest of ’em. And that means Esther. She is proud.”
“Well, if that mother of hers—”
“Oh, I know how you always felt about her mother.... But there, Foster, all this rakin’ up of old squabbles isn’t gettin’ us anywhere. What I set out to tell you was that Esther didn’t want to come to an uncle who had hardly noticed her all her life and who she probably believes—yes, of course she does, in spite of all I’ve been able to say—was responsible for her father and mother’s troubles, and leave me who have taken care of her for years. If I had come she wouldn’t have hesitated—much—I guess. To come alone was different. I’ve been all the forenoon arguin’ and advisin’ and it wasn’t until an hour or so ago she said yes. I left her packin’ her trunk and cryin’ into it. She doesn’t know I’m here now. I came to show you, if I could, the kind of girl she is and what a ticklish position we are all in. You’ve got to be gentle and forebearin’ with her, Foster, or you’ll have another smash in the Townsend family; that’s the plain truth.”
He was leaning against the table, his hands in his pockets. For some few minutes he had been looking at the carpet, not at her. Now he stirred impatiently.
“Well, all right,” he said, “I’ll be as decent as I can—with my limitations.”
“Now don’t get mad. You see what I mean. You’ll have to overlook some things. She’ll be homesick at first. She’ll want to run down and see me and I guess you’ll have to let her.”
“Why shouldn’t I let her? I don’t care how much she goes to see you.”
“You think you don’t, but perhaps you will. I know you pretty well. You like to have folks jump when you give an order and to stay where they are when you don’t. Be patient with her, won’t you?”