Mr. Rosenberg did not read Browning. The allusion passed him by.
"Then take your courage in your two hands, boy, and do as I tell you. In a month or two you'll be thanking me on your knees. Bolt, I tell you, bolt. Don't see her again. Leave a message by me—catch the restaurant-train. I told Brown to pack your valise, and the car is waiting."
Gerald was pale now. "She'll think me a cur."
"No such thing. I shall make good your case. Urgency. She will think you could not help yourself. She will look upon the affair as hung up, not ended. After a while she will forget it."
"But—but what are they to do?" stammered Gerald. "The mother may deserve this, but she doesn't. It is she who will have to suffer."
"She shall not suffer. I will send them enough to carry on, and I will recommend that wax doll of a mother to take a situation—to go as companion to some heiress or something—to put her shoulder to the wheel and help to keep her children. She has had a good run for her money, now let her taste the rough side of things for a while. Do her no harm. Do her good."
Gerald rose and went to the window, gazing out with unseeing eyes at the busy welter of society traffic—the swift cars, laden with well-dressed occupants, which flashed by in the summer evening.
His father watched him anxiously.
"Gerald," he said at last, "listen to me. If you go now—if you do as I tell you—there need be nothing final about it. The girl will be at Wayhurst—you will know where to find her. Suitors are not likely to be as common as blackberries, even with her looks. Take this chance to think things over more coolly than is possible when she is in the same house with you. I don't want to demand too great a sacrifice, boy——"
The last words were husky and wistful. He loved his son sincerely.