“Papa! poor papa!”
They whispered together for a moment, then he heard the old man groan:
“We are beggars now! beggars!”
RoBards moved to them with hands outstretched in sympathy, but when they saw him they stared and shrank from him.
The old man cowered over his gold-headed cane, and Patty set her arm under his to help him as they tottered along the wall, the father’s white head wagging, the daughter’s form bent as if with age. They looked to be beggars indeed—and in a city where the rich were especially smitten.
CHAPTER VIII
The cart with the powder kegs moved on, but RoBards did not follow. The holiday of overturning buildings had ceased to suggest either a sacred duty or a pastime. He drifted irresolute about the town.
He went home at last, cold, cold, cold. The distance was thrice as long as when he ran with the Fire Kings. St. John’s Park was like a graveyard when he reached it. Though it was far from the hour of winter sunrise, the bare trees were thrilled with daybreak ardor; the houses were pink with tremulous auroral rose. But no birds sang or flew, and the dawn in the sky was the light of devastation.
He hoped for and dreaded the meeting with his wife. He had been preparing his defence all the way home. He was a good lawyer and he had a good case, but women were not like the judges he found on the bench before him. Women had their own statutes and procedures, and appeals were granted on the most peculiar grounds.
But his wife was not at home. She had stopped at her father’s, of course, for a while. The black folk about the house were asleep while the white man’s town went up in smoke. It was none of their affair.