Three times after dessert Star made Mr. Richards let her fill his tiny cup with the delicious coffee; then she playfully told him that she should not give him any more, but if he would come into the library, she would try and see what she could do toward intoxicating him in some other way.
“I have not forgotten how fond you are of music,” she added, smiling, “and I want you to tell me if you do not think I have improved some since you last heard me play.”
She slipped her hand through his arm and led him into the library, while Mr. Rosevelt watched her with humorous eyes as she performed this labor of love.
Seated at the piano, she whiled away another hour, making George Richards forget everything disagreeable, and appear the pleasant, genial gentleman whom she used to know.
“‘Richard is almost himself again,’ I think,” she thought, with a happy little smile, as once, after a comic song which she sang to him, he leaned back in his chair and laughed long and heartily.
But this could not go on forever, and finally Mr. Rosevelt gradually led him to talk business, and asked him to tell him just what his trouble was.
This changed everything, and he became at once the anxious, care-worn man again.
“I do not like to trouble you, Uncle Jacob,” he said, uneasily. “You have had your day of business, with all its cares and perplexities, without bothering your brain with those of other people. I’m in a terrible muddle, it is true; but—I guess there will be some way out of it;” and there came into his eyes that same wild, desperate look which Star had noticed in the morning, and which made her shudder with a terrible fear.
But Mr. Rosevelt insisted, and finally drew from him a true statement of facts.
“I am sorry you are having such a hard time of it, George,” he said, thoughtfully, when he had concluded. “How much would it take to relieve you of your embarrassment?”