“What is it, Don? You have not come near me all evening! Have you had word from Lance that he is not well or that anything has happened to him? Please tell me at once.”
Still for another moment there was no answer, and afterwards Tory was too startled by Don’s answer to reply.
Immediately Don apologized.
“I am sorry, Tory. I ought not to have said such a thing to you or to any one else. So far as I can recall I never made such a hateful speech about Lance in my life. I hope I never will again. But this business of Lance’s behaving like a kid of five or six years old has been too much for me. It is the worst thing that has happened in our family since my mother’s death.
“The rest of us have always suspected Lance was father’s favorite, chiefly because he looks like my mother and has been so delicate. Since Lance cleared out there is no doubt of the matter. Father has grown to look ten years older in these last few weeks. He says he is not going to look for Lance, that when he has had enough he will come home. Just the same, he does not have a moment free from uneasiness. He is crazy to find Lance, and I know he wants you and Dorothy to search for him when you go up to New York for your holiday. Wish I were coming along! Not that I’d waste any time troubling to find Lance. He deserves whatever comes to him. He always was an idiot, but I did not dream such a one as he has proved himself.”
In spite of Don’s almost sullen manner Tory partly understood his state of mind. In the year of their acquaintance, living across the street from each other, and Tory one of his sister’s most intimate friends, she had appreciated many points about Don that most people failed to realize.
He hated to see people unhappy and would make almost any sacrifice to save them from unhappiness, provided he could grasp the cause of their trouble. In any and every illness Lance had suffered during their boyhood, Don had devoted himself to his whims. He had admired Lance’s cleverness, his sense of humor, even his talent for music up to the present. Now he was puzzled and troubled and resentful. If he had not thought Lance as selfish as the rest of the family considered him, now he believed him more so.
“You see, Tory, no one talks or thinks of any one but Lance at our house these days, if father is not around. Dot has nearly made herself ill worrying over him. Now when I have something rather special I want to confide to you and have been trying for the opportunity all evening, you begin by asking about Lance and looking nervous and miserable.
“Lance McClain is under the impression that he has such a talent for music he can’t live any longer without his chance. Maybe he thinks that music can’t live without him. It is the biggest—well, I won’t say what, I ever heard of in my life. I give him about two months more of half-starving to death in New York and he never will want to hear the word music again.”
Tory shook her head.