Payson nodded, but he did not repeat his commendation of William. Instead, he looked rather odd and spoke about the weather.
“Fine for the crops,” he said; “but we need more rain.”
Mr. Carter assented. He felt uneasy. There was something odd in Payson’s manner. The magnate got off at the second floor, and the elevator continued its ascent. At the top Mr. Carter got out and hurried to his son’s door. As no one answered his knock, he opened it and went in.
It was a good-sized office, furnished in accordance with Mr. Payson’s ideas of business—that is, in the latest and most solid fashion. On a table in the center of the room stood a bottle and a glass, and William Carter was stretched in a chair beside it, lying half on the table, his head down, sound asleep.
Mr. Carter stood aghast. He could see the haggard profile and the dark rings under the closed eyes. Worn out with his heart-breaking night vigil, William had fallen asleep; but his father felt that he was looking on the wreck of his son’s life, that William, in his misery, had sought oblivion in the old and time-honored way.
XVI
Leigh Carter had attained the dignity of his eighteenth birthday a few days before the arrival of his brother’s bride. He had done fairly well at the high school, and was preparing now, during vacation, for a preliminary examination for the university which had educated the male Carters for generations.
Leigh had some mental gifts and a taste for poetry, which seemed to indicate a literary career, and his fond mother regarded him as a budding genius. There was a wide gap in age between the two younger and the two older Carters, occasioned by the death of three intervening children, and Mrs. Carter’s affections had always centered on her baby boy, as she still called Leigh—to his great indignation. Her pride had been in William, her sympathy for poor Dan, but her doting fondness was for Leigh.
Mr. Carter did not approve of it. He had warned her more than once that she couldn’t bring up anything but an incubator chicken in that way and make a success of it.
Leigh wasn’t exactly a success. The latent manhood in him had scarcely stirred. He was a tall, lanky youth with a handsome, boyish face and the eyes of a girl. He had been a dreamer, too, and had spent much time in reading romances from the news-stands; but he was a good boy, he had cultivated no vices, and “milksop” was the worst charge that other youths of his set could make against him.