“I don’t care to be roasted or smoked. I have come to talk business and I wish you to deal graciously with me, as becomes the noblest uncle in the world in dealing with his young and wayward niece.”
He filled the pipe from a jar, and she grew grave, watching him press the crinkled bits of dusky gold into the bowl, for now she must talk of her father and her own affairs seriously. The light of the match flamed up and lit the stern lines of Rodney Merriam’s fine old face. He threw the stick into a tray.
“Yes, Zee,” he said very kindly.
“I’m sorry if I seemed a little—precipitate—yesterday. But it was all new and strange. And I have known that you did not like father. You will overlook whatever I did and said yesterday, won’t you?”
There was a note of real distress in her voice.
“It’s a good plan to begin the world over every morning. I want to help you in any way I can, Zee. I began at the wrong end yesterday. The fault was all mine!”
“Father and I have had a long talk about his business. He approached it last night on his own account. I have told him that I was coming to you.”
“Yes; it is better to have told him that.”
She felt quite at her ease, and his kindness encouraged her.
“Father has met with misfortune. He has told me frankly about it: he speculated with the money that belonged to me—and the money is all gone.”