Derry considered the situation. "I don't like it at all, Bronson. But perhaps it was just a woman's vanity. She wanted to see how she looked."
"Well, she's seen—and she ain't going to be satisfied with that. She'll want to wear them all the time—"
"Of course, she can't, Bronson. She isn't as silly as to think she can."
"Perhaps not, sir." Bronson opened his lips and shut them again.
"There's something else, sir," he said, after a pause. "I've found out that she's giving the General things to drink."
"Hilda?" Derry said, incredulously. "Oh, surely not, Bronson, The Doctor has given her strict orders—."
"She's got a bottle behind the books, and she pours him a glass right after dinner, and another before he goes to sleep, and—and—you know he'd sell his soul for the stuff, Mr. Derry."
Derry did know. It had been the shame of all his youthful years that his father should stoop to subterfuge, to falsehood, to everything that was foreign to his native sense of honor and honesty, for a taste of that which his abnormal appetite demanded.
"If anyone had told me but you, Bronson, I wouldn't have believed it."
"I didn't want to tell you, but I had to. You can see that, can't you, sir?"