"Yes," answered Jeremiah. He blew his nose loudly. "He asked me, an' he asked me," Jeremiah explained, "an' I was that uppish! Jeremiah,' he'd say, 'don't try to cast yourself for God. It won't work,' an' I'd say, 'Is it going to rain, Father McGowan?' Just the last time he come I seen him in the hall, an' he was pleadin' with me; he sez, 'You can control his work. See that he does no harm, but don't do more,' an' I sez, 'It's snowin' now, ain't it?' Oh, dear Lordy! Ain't life one mess of regrets! One after the other, spoilin' your digestion, an' makin' yuh kick around of nights! ... I loved him too."
"Dear," said Cecilia, "he knew that!"
"Yuh think so, Celie?" asked Jeremiah wistfully. "Oh, yes!" she answered. Her answer held an applied genuineness. It convinced Jeremiah.
"I give him back his rotten little factory (I was losin' money on it, anyway), and I wrote him a letter. I sez, 'Dear Sir——' An' I went on telling him Father McGowan an' Gawd done it, not me. I sez I was his well-wisher now, wishin' him all success, an' I sez not to get funny in the hospital business on sick kids no more or I'd have him jailed. The letter was friendly and Christian, all owing to Father McGowan, who doesn't know it—God rest his soul!"
Cecilia was smiling tremulously. "You absolute darling!" she said. She perched on the arm of his chair, and they sat in silence.
"After all," she said, "hurting this little man wouldn't bring mamma her pink roses, would it, dear?"
Jeremiah's eyes snapped. In them was the look that certain competitors, who scorned him socially, dreaded. "It brung me mine," he stated; "it brung me mine!" Cecilia laughed. A sudden lightness of spirit, like the flash of day into dawn, was hers.
"Dear," she said, "I believe Father McGowan knows! I believe he does!" Jeremiah kissed her and smoothed her golden hair with his hand which would never become smooth. "You're like your maw," he said. It was his greatest tribute. Cecilia clung to him with a pathetic hunger.
"Miss Cecilia, the telephone," said the pompous person from the doorway.
"Yes, sir; yes, sir," answered Jeremiah, "she's a-coming." Cecilia went to an adjoining room. After her "yes" things swayed a bit. She did not need his voice, which said, "This is Stuyvesant Twombly." She knew. "Yes," she repeated.