“If you ever dare treat me like this again–––” she began, whimpering.
Steve brushed by her and up the stairs. He went 288 into Constantine’s room, where the old man lay in helpless discontent, his dulling eyes looking at the sunken gardens and the chattering peacocks and his heart longing for Hannah and the early days together.
“Why, Steve,” he said in a pleased tone, “you look as if they were after you. Thought you’d forgotten me. That nurse Bea engaged has a voice like a scissors grinder in action.”
Briefly Steve told him what had taken place, not mentioning Beatrice’s name. It had an astonishing effect; as a mental tonic it was not to be surpassed, for the fallen oak of a man throbbed anew with life, as much as was possible, his hands twitching with rage, his teeth grinding, and the dulled eyes bright with interest.
“The dogs! I knew it! Why didn’t you tell me long before? Blocked ’em off––snuffed ’em out. Meddling with wildcat stocks––asinine any way you figure it! Well, I don’t know that I blame you. The first success was too sweet to leave untried again, eh?” He chuckled as if something amused him. “We’ll close out to ’em. We’ll start again–––”
“I don’t want another fortune handed me,” Steve interrupted. “I want to earn it, if you please. I’m not a pauper in the true sense of the word; I am merely trained down to the proper financial weight for a man of my age and experience to carry, and I can now enter the ring with good chances. The other way was as absurd as the four-year-old prodigy who typewrites and is rather fond of Greek. But I loved your daughter and I thought it quite the right thing to do. I asked your daughter just now if she was willing to live with a poor man, according to her 289 standards, as your wife lived with you––to give me her help and her faith in me.
“Do you know what she answered? She told me to come to you and truckle for another big loan, which I am not capable of handling, to cheat legally and never hint to the world the truth of the affair. She hadn’t the most remote idea that I was in earnest when I told her I was going to be a failure in the eyes of the world––but I was not going to have my wife’s father support me. I’m not sorry this has happened––feel as if the Old Man of the Sea had dropped off me. But this is the thing: either my wife and I will live in a home of our own, and such a home as I can provide, being an independent and proper family and keeping our problems and responsibilities within our gates; or else your daughter is going to stay with you and lose her one chance of freedom while I leave town.”
The Basque grandmother and the Celtic grandfather lent Steve all their passionate determination and keenness of insight, as they once lent him chivalry, humour, and charm. He stood before the old man taut with excitement and flushed with sudden fury.
“It is you I blame,” he added before Constantine could make answer. “You kept her as useless as a china shepherdess; it is not her fault if she fails to rise to the occasion now.”
Constantine’s face quivered; what the emotion was none but himself knew.