They had rarely spoken of Wayne; it could hardly be said that they avoided mentioning him; but his life was outside theirs; his sleeping in the house and eating one meal a day with them left him a tolerated tenant whose ways it were wiser not to question. Mrs. Craighill observed with interest that her husband seemed willing to take credit for his son’s admirable physical proportions, but that his paternal pride stopped there. Her attitude toward her husband was so wholly sympathetic to-night that she saw Wayne with his eyes. It must indeed be a grievous thing to have lived an honorable life, to have made a place for one’s self and to find both name and position brought low by a profligate son.
“Fanny is very happy,” continued Colonel Craighill. “John is a splendid fellow—steady as a rock, and with high ideals. A woman like Fanny needs such a man to check her exuberances.”
“Oh, she’s most delightful and she has certainly been kind to me! She might have made it hard for me if she had wanted to.”
“Oh, she’s kind!” smiled Colonel Craighill, though his tone implied that allowances must be made for Fanny. “There’s a good deal of the Wayne in her, just as there is in her brother.” He shook his head and sighed. As they left the dining room her husband placed his arm about her. These intimations of his secret feeling toward his children seemed to have knit her closer into his life; she felt the ground solider under her feet. She was not without her sensibilities and she had realized that a second wife does not at once wear her new robes easily. It is as though she blundered upon a stage whose scene has been set by another hand. Its mechanism, its lights, its exits are unfamiliar. She is haunted by the dread of missing her cue and of hearing a ghostly prompter’s voice mocking her off stage.
“I have just been re-writing my will, and I have taken pains to eliminate, so far as human foresight can do so, the possibility of any trouble when I am gone. You will have many years beyond my expectation of life and I want nothing to mar them. It will be unnecessary for you to deal with my children in any way. I have designated our strongest trust company—a concern in which I have long been director—to administer the estate. Of course I hope your relations with my children will always continue friendly, but it is best not to mingle family interests in such a case. And now”—he rubbed his hands together as though freeing himself of every care—“now we may dismiss the future to take care of itself.”
“I don’t like to think of such things,” she murmured. “I’m just beginning to appreciate all that you have done for me. It means more to me, Roger, than you have any idea of. You have been most kind and considerate, and generous in every way. I have never been so happy—I never expected such happiness to come to me. It doesn’t seem that I deserve it.”
She sat down on a stool beside him and he took one of her hands and held it on his knee and stroked it fondly. This tenderness, keyed to the domestic tone of the hearthside, soothed and exalted her. He believed in her, she belonged to him; she wished that this hour might never end, so perfect were its peace and happiness. He talked to-night with a new freedom, and she felt the years diminish between them. He told her many anecdotes of old times in the city, describing the humble beginnings of some of his fellow-townsmen: “When I first knew him he was only a truck driver, and now!”—the familiar phrases of American biography. The hours passed swiftly. At half-past ten a motor stopped at the side door, and a moment later Wayne’s key snapped the lock.
“I’ll tell him to come in here,” said Addie, rising. He answered her summons cheerily, and came in and stood with his back to the fire. His high spirits caused his father to eye him carefully, but Wayne, as though in answer to this silent inquiry, straightened himself and stood erect with arms folded for inspection.
“I’m off for a little trip to-night. Wingfield wants me to go over to Philadelphia with him to see a Mask and Wig show. We’ll come back in three or four days.”
“Are you sure it isn’t a prize fight?” quizzed Colonel Craighill. “I’m always a little suspicious of Dick’s expeditions. When you and he leave town I usually find there’s been a prize fight at the other end of the line.”