CHAPTER VII
WELCOME CALLERS
Nan decided to explain to Eaton that Farley’s illness had taken a turn for the worse and that he had been abusing her as a relief from his suffering. She was surprised to find two men in the parlor, the second of whom she did not at once recognize as Jerry.
“I’ve taken the liberty,” Eaton began, “of bringing Mr. Amidon along. Thought you wouldn’t mind, particularly as I couldn’t have come myself without him. He dropped in just as I was leaving and seemed greatly depressed; I hadn’t the heart to leave him. Depression is his normal state—no serenity, no hope, no vision!”
Amidon grinned during this explanation, realizing that its lack of veracity was, in the circumstances, peculiarly Eatonesque and attributable to his friend’s wish to relieve Nan of embarrassment. They had been uncomfortable from the moment the maid admitted them and they became conscious of the discord above. Words and phrases of Farley’s furious arraignment had reached them and there was no escaping the conclusion that she had been the object of the castigation. Jerry, acting on his own impulses, would have grabbed his hat and bolted. It was only the demeanor of his idol, placidly staring at the wall, that held him back. The call had been suggested by Eaton as a gay social adventure, but it was disconcerting to find a girl whose good fortune had seemed so enviable with tears in her eyes, nervously fingering a moist handkerchief, and Jerry’s wits were severely taxed by his efforts to meet a situation without precedent in his experience. Once he had called on a girl whose father came home drunk and manifested an ambition to destroy the furniture and use the pieces in the chastisement of his daughter, and Amidon had enjoyed a brief, decisive engagement with the inebriated parent and had then put him to bed. But there was nothing in that incident that bore in the slightest degree upon the difficulties of people who lived in the best street in town, where, he had always assumed, the prosperous householders dwelt in peace and harmony with their fortunate families.
“I’m glad to see you, both of you,” she said, with all the assurance she could muster. “Papa’s been having a bad time; you must have heard him talking. He’s very angry. I wish you’d go up, Mr. Eaton, and see if you can’t talk him into a better humor.”
“If you think it’s all right—” Eaton began dubiously; but he was amused at Nan’s cheerful willingness to turn her angry foster-parent over to him for pacification. It was like Nan!
“Oh, he’d been looking forward to seeing you,” she answered quite honestly. “These spells don’t last long; the very sight of you will cheer him.”
She did not, however, offer to accompany him to Farley’s room, but discreetly left him to test the atmosphere for himself.
“Well,” Jerry remarked, when he was alone with Nan, “Pittsburg put it over on New York to-day. Three to nothing!”
He gave the score with a jubilant turn to the “nothing,” as though Pittsburg’s success called for universal rejoicing.