"But you are all prepared—you said so, Patergrey—and you are so clever you can do it in a week," coaxed Rob, getting up to kneel beside her father, and crinkling her flexible face into a maze of irresistible puckers, as if he were a little child.
Her father laughed. "A week, you silly puss! Three days, at the outside," he said.
Rob cried out triumphantly: "Then you can't say no! Only three days! It can't make much difference with the machine, and isn't it worth three days' delay to relieve Mardy darling's mind? Poor Mardy! She's so brave and cheerful, but, oh, she does have to squeeze hard to keep us all fed and housed."
To Rob's distress her father dropped his head on his arms, laid over the back of the chair, and groaned.
"You're right, Roberta. It makes me sick at heart to think of what it has cost her to be so faithfully, patiently loving with me all these years. Poor, bright, pretty Mary Winslow, who might have shone in any setting! Yes, child, I'll do the article—set about it to-day. I know I make life hard for her, but I do my best. Some day you'll all see, Rob, I did my best."
Tears were raining down Roberta's cheeks. "Papa, Patergrey, I know, I know all about it! Why do you say that to me?" she cried. "And Mardy doesn't have a hard time—she'd never forgive me if I let you say that! She loves you so much that it would have been cruel to have given her all the world, without you."
"How can you understand that, Roberta?" asked her father, startled by the girl's insight.
"Because anyone feels that way when they love someone," replied Rob. "Wouldn't I rather be Roberta Grey, your daughter, than the richest girl in the world with another father? Don't grieve, Patergrey. It's all right for all the Greys, and we'll show all those people who talk and don't know what they're talking about, we'll show them—you and I and the bricquette machine—some day, won't we?"
"I hope so, Rob, I hope so," said her father. "But I can't help wondering, little daughter. I sometimes feel as though I were losing my hold. But, yes; we will prove ourselves right, Rob, my son," he added, straightening himself, the red spot burning under his glowing eyes. "And in the meantime you shall have the article this week, Rob. Tell your mother not to worry; my article on fuel shall give us ours. Tell her you woke me up to my duty."
"I'll tell her nothing about it, Patergrey," said Rob. "You shall hand her the hundred dollars and surprise her when it comes. And don't say I woke you up to your duty. It makes me sound perfectly horrid, and feel worse than I sound. Now I must go help get dinner. Thank you, Patergrey." And Rob kissed her father, and slipped away, glad to have succeeded, yet with the vague pain at her heart which of late she often carried with her from one of these pleasant mornings with the dear, pathetic father.