Cecilia put her hand on her brother's shoulder. "Good-night, dear," she said. A quiver ran across his face.
"I didn't want you to know," he whispered "You're so dear, but old-fashioned. You don't understand how a man——" he stopped, and she slipped down on the bed by him. "Everything's so beastly here. I'm so ashamed to have the fellows see dad," he went on incoherently. "Always talkin' of how things cost—always makin' breaks in grammar,—afraid of his own butler——" John's eyelids were drooping. He fell back, asleep. Cecilia got up and tried to pull him into a more comfortable position. Then she went to her own room. On the way she passed Jeremiah's. She paused by his door. She wanted to kiss him,—as she had Johnny, when, very small, he had bumped himself.
"Excuse him, Dearest," she whispered. "He's very young. Some day he'll understand, I hope." Then she went on. The dawn had come. The Sound was covered by a grey fog. Cecilia lay down to stare up at her ceiling. She did not sleep again.
At last came noises. The gardeners talked as they worked on the terrace below her windows. "Cut up rough," said one. Cecilia could hear the break of wood. The white trellis with its pink rambler had evidently suffered.
"The old man——!" said another voice expressively. They laughed a little.
"Well, the kid's a gent, anyway," said the other, loudly. "Drunk every night, and enough lady friends for a Hippodrome chorus——" they laughed again.
Cecilia turned and hid her face in the pillow. Her palms were wet.
Father McGowan was surrounded by brigands. Their burnt cork moustaches gave them a fierce expression terrible to view.
"So you saw a man climbing up the grape arbor?" questioned Father McGowan.
The spokesman wriggled a little, and then said, "Well, we didn't just see him but we heard him."