"Remember, dear, your thoughts are like branding-irons just now; they leave their marks. We want our child to be brave and confident and steadfast, not a coward—or something worse. This is how cowards are made. How can a child inherit weakness when its mother is without fear?"
Profiting by this experience, Bob undertook to guard against another visit from Lilas. He was really worried, although he pretended to dismiss the matter as inconsequential, and his fears flared into full blaze again a few days later, when Jimmy Knight called upon him and announced cautiously:
"Say, you know Lilas is back. Well, she's gone off her nut—she's going to give herself up."
"Give herself up? How?"
"She's going to tell the truth about the Hammon affair. She thinks she's dying. Where do we go from here if she does that?"
Bob could not conceal his alarm, which increased when his brother-in-law begged him to do something quickly to save them all from disaster. "I wouldn't come to you," Jim confessed, candidly, "if I knew what to do; for you don't like me, and I'm not crazy about you. But we've got to stand together on account of Lorelei—not that I'd enjoy a call on the district attorney at any time."
Agreeing that there was no time to waste, the two men hastened to
Lilas's hotel, only to receive a greeting that was far from auspicious.
When they had adroitly brought the conversation around to the point at
issue Lilas explained:
"Yes, the doctors have ticketed me. They've shown me the gate." She coughed hollowly and laid her hand on her chest. "Oh, it's the white bug! That closes the show for me." She appeared very ill, and it did not occur to Bob to doubt her.
Jim began briskly: "Why, that's nothing, Lilas! Arizona is the place for you."
"Arizona is a long jump from Broadway."