Then suddenly he decided that he would go to Old Chester and say so in person. "I suppose I ought to go, anyhow; I haven't been there for six weeks. Yes; this child is just what she needs."
And that was how it came about that when he went home he pulled his daughter Alice's pretty ear and said he was going away that night. "I shall take the ten-o'clock train," he said.
His girl—a pleasant, flower-like young creature—scolded him affectionately. "I wish you wouldn't take so many journeys. Promise to be careful; I worry about you when I'm not with you to take care of you," she said, in her sweet, anxious young voice. Her father, smiling, promised prudence, and for the mere joy of watching her let her pack his bag, lecturing him as she did so about his health. "Now that you have undertaken all this extra business of the Pryor-Barr people, you owe it to your stockholders to be careful of your health," she told him, refusing to notice his smile when he solemnly agreed with her.
"What would happen to the Company if anything happened to you?" she insisted, rubbing her soft cheek against his.
"Ruin, of course."
But she would not laugh. "And what would happen to me?"
"Ah, well, that's a different matter," he admitted, and kissed her and bade her be careful. "What would happen to me if anything happened to you?" he teased.
She hung about him, brooding over him like a little mother dove with a hundred questions. "Are you going anywhere except to Mercer?"
"Well, yes; possibly."
"Where?"