"He's got plenty," Gus declared. "More 'n is good for him if—"
"If what?" Ma queried.
Gus halted; it was Allie who answered: "If he's done what we think he's done—gone away after some woman."
"Some woman?" Ma stared blankly from one face to another. "Buddy in love? Why, he never wrote me nothing about bein' in love." Reading a further message in her husband's expression, she cried, fiercely: "He's a good boy. He wouldn't take up with—with nobody that wasn't nice. What makes you think it's a girl?"
"I didn't say 'girl,' Ma, I said 'woman.' Buddy's been writin' to me and—"
"What's the difference? Mebbe he's in love with some nice young woman an' they've run away to git married. Buddy's han'some, and they got nice women everywhere—"
"Love? With all his money? And him only up to fractions?" Allegheny laughed scornfully.
Gus Briskow wiped his face with a nervous hand. "I'm 'most sick over it," he confessed. "The perfessor has written me a coupla times about him. Buddy's gone kinda wild, I guess, drinkin' an'—"
"Drinking?" Gray interrupted, sharply. "Why didn't you tell me? So, you gave him unlimited money, in spite of my warning?"
"He wanted his own bank account; his share of the royalties. Made him feel more like a man, he said. I—I never learned how to say 'no' to him or Allie. Ma an' I allus said 'no' to each other, but it was allus 'yes' to them. We never had much to give 'em, noway."