He closed the argument by reminding the boy that his classes at Columbia would soon require his presence. Whereupon Junior declared that he was too old to go to school any longer. He wanted to get out and make his own way in the world. He was a man now and—all the ancient refrain of the home-building instinct.
It was a heartache to RoBards to see his child grown suddenly old enough to be skewered with the darts of love; but the romance was premature and it must be suppressed ruthlessly for the boy’s own sake. And for this growing pain also there was no ether.
To town they went.
For a while Junior’s melancholy was complete; then it suddenly vanished. He no longer spent his evenings at home writing long, long letters. He no longer went about with the eyes of a dying gazelle.
Patty said: “He has forgotten his country sweetheart and found a city one.”
From his superior information, RoBards made a shrewder guess that the Lasher girl had come to New York and was supporting herself somehow. He did not mention this suspicion to Patty, but he tried to verify it by shadowing Junior through the streets as through the lanes.
New York, however, was a labyrinth of endless escapes. The boy seemed to know that he was followed and after a long and apparently aimless saunter, would always elude his pursuer.
His father hunted through some of the dance halls, the gambling dives, through Castle Garden and other retreats where lovers sat like Siamese twins, enveloped in their ancient communions. But he never found Junior and he was ashamed to confess that he was searching, since his search was vain.
He dared not ask the boy where he went lest he encourage him to lie, or to retort with impudent defiance.
The eldest son, Keith, was thinking little of women. He was a man’s man, full of civic pride and municipal works. When he was at his business he took delight in being as dirty as possible. He wore the roughest clothes, left his jaws unshaven, talked big aqueduct talk.