Only each household knows how it meets the necessity of living. It is generally the mother and daughter, if there be one, who comprise the inner finance committee. Men are only Napoleons of finance when the market is strong and steady. When it becomes panicky and fluctuates and resolves itself into small unheroic deals, woman gets the job. For the world is principally a place where men work for the pleasures and woman has to cringe for the scraps. It may seem unchivalrous, but true nevertheless.
Only Sue knew how she compelled one dollar to bravely do the duty of two. Appearances are never so deceitful as in the household where want is apparently scorned. Sue was of the breed who, if necessary, could raise absolute pauperism to the peerage. And if ever a month came in which she would lie awake nights, developing the further elasticity of currency, certainly her neighbors knew aught of it, and her father least of all.
The colonel recommenced his pacing. Sue, hands clasped around knees, watched him with steady, unwinking eyes.
“It's not the deviled crab, daddy,” she said quietly, at length. “It's something else. 'Fess up. You're in trouble. I feel it. Sit down there and let me go halves on it. Sit down.”
Colonel Desha vaguely passed a hand through his hair, then, mechanically yielding to the superior strength and self-control of his daughter, eased himself into an opposite armchair.
“Oh, no, you're quite wrong, quite wrong,” he reiterated absently. “I'm only tired. Only tired, girlie. That's all. Been very busy, you know.” And he ran on feverishly, talking about Waterbury, weights, jockeys, mounts—all the jargon of the turf. The dam of his mind had given way, and a flood of thoughts, hopes, fears came rioting forth unchecked, unthinkingly.
His eyes were vacant, a frown dividing his white brows, the thin hand on the table closing and relaxing. He was not talking to his daughter, but to his conscience. It was the old threadbare, tattered tale—spawn of the Goddess fortune; a thing of misbegotten hopes and desires.
The colonel, swollen with the winning of the Carter Handicap, had conceived the idea that he was possessor of a God-given knowledge of the “game.” And there had been many to sustain that belief. Now, the colonel might know a horse, but he did not know the law of averages, of chance, nor did he even know how his fellow man's heart is fashioned. Nor that track fortunes are only made by bookies or exceptionally wealthy or brainy owners; that a plunger comes out on top once in a million times. That the track, to live, must bleed “suckers” by the thousand, and that he, Colonel Desha, was one of the bled.
He was on the wrong side of the table. The Metropolitan, Brooklyn, Suburban, Brighton, Futurity, and a few minor meets served to swamp the colonel. What Waterbury had to do with the case was not clear. The colonel had taken his advice time and time again only to lose. But the Kentucky estate had been sold, and Mr. Waterbury held the mortgage of the Desha home. And then, his mind emptied of its poison, the colonel slowly came to himself.
“What—what have I been saying?” he cried tensely. He attempted a laugh, a denial; caught his daughter's eyes, looked into them, and then buried his face in his quivering hands.