"I do, Millie."
Mrs. Saxon made her next point triumphantly, connecting it with the point before by some obscure logic known only to ladies.
"Hugh, a father could not do more for Lillian Burr than the Colonel has since poor Theodore went. The house full of flowers, calling there himself every day and twice a day, though she won't see him; but Lillian won't see any one. The Colonel's been ailing himself, too, but he wouldn't put off the rally and disappoint the town. And the new library will open this fall, and there's talk that he's giving an organ to the church. Hugh, don't you think Theodore's death may have sobered him? Don't you think this may be the beginning of better things? Don't you think——"
"I think you're making a butterfly bow. I don't like them," said the Judge, with the ingenuous smile that somehow closed a subject. She sighed, but changed her attack.
"Turn round now. I want to brush you. Hugh, what has happened to Neil Donovan?"
"What do you mean, happened to him?" snapped the Judge, and then added soberly, "I don't know, Millie. I wish I did."
"An Irish boy can get just so far and no farther."
"How far, Millie?"
"Don't be flippant, Hugh. There's something strange about Neil lately. He didn't speak three times at the table last time he came to supper here. He looks at me as if he didn't know who I was when I speak to him on the street sometimes. There's no life in him. He's like Charlie and all the rest of them—giving out just when things are going his way; that's an Irish boy every time."
"When things are going his way? When his best friend has just shot himself?"