“I fear she has acquired expensive tastes abroad. Julia always spent money wastefully.”
Dameron smiled and shook his head deprecatingly, with his air of martyrdom. When Merriam shifted from one foot to the other, Dameron started uneasily.
“You ugly hypocrite, talking about expensive tastes! I suppose you have let everybody you know imagine that it has been your money that has kept Zee abroad. It’s like you, and you’re certainly a consistent beast. As I was saying, I mean that you shall treat her well, not according to your own ideas, but mine. I want you to brace up and try to act or look like a white man. You’ve got to keep enough servants in that old shell of yours to take care of it. You must be immensely rich by this time. You haven’t spent any money for twenty years; and you’ve undoubtedly profited well in your handling of what Margaret left Zee. That was like Margaret, to make you trustee of her child’s property, after the dog’s life you had led her! You may be sure that it wasn’t because she had any confidence in you, but because she had borne with you bravely, and it was like her to make an outward show of respect for you from the grave. And I suppose she hoped you might be a man at last for the girl’s sake. The girl’s her mother over again; she’s a thoroughbred. And you—I suppose God tolerates you on earth merely to make Heaven more attractive.”
Merriam at no time raised his voice; the Merriams were a low-spoken family; and when Rodney Merriam was quietest he was most dangerous.
Voices could be heard now across the hall. The morning conference was at an end; and Michael Carr crossed to his room at twenty-five minutes before nine, and opened the door in the full knowledge that Ezra Dameron was waiting for him. Many strange things had happened in the offices of Knight, Kittredge and Carr; but Michael Carr had long ago formed the habit of seeing everything and saying nothing.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said affably, and shook hands with both men.
“I have just been warning Ezra against overwork,” said Merriam, composedly, and without changing his position. “At Ezra’s age a man ought to check himself; he ought to let other people use the hammer and drive the nails.”
“Rodney always had his little joke,” said Dameron, and laughed a dry laugh that showed his teeth in his very unpleasant smile.
“Don’t be in a hurry, Rod,” said Carr.
“Oh, I’m just roaming about, Mike. I find that a morning walk helps my spirits.”