But it was a broken man who shut the door behind them and turned back, fingering his grey chin. There must have been a dimness in his eyes and a quiver to his wide-lipped, generous mouth.
"Perhaps Mr. Burnham was right. Only I was kind of hopin'... Now Mr. Lockwood over there..."
He shook himself to throw off the spell of depression and somehow managed to quicken again his abiding faith in the essential goodness of the world.
"Well, well! He's kind, very kind."
He began to restore his model to its hiding place, musing upon the ebb-tide in his affairs in his muddle-headed way, and in the process managed to convince himself that "it 'ud all come right."
"With this young man in here, and everythin' gettin' fixed up, and new stock comin' in ... I'm sure Mr. Lockwood'll see it the right way ... for us.... He's kind, very kind."
Thus it was that he presently called up the stairs in a very cheerful voice: "Betty, are you pretty near through up there?"
The girl's weary voice came down to him without accent: "Yes, father, almost."
"Well, then, you keep an eye on the store, please. I'm goin' to step out for a minute."
"Yes, father."