“The child isn't at all well,” said his mother.
XXXIII.
Halleck met Atherton at the door of his room with his hat and coat on. “Why, Halleck! I was just going to see if you had come home!”
“You needn't now,” said Halleck, pushing by him into the room. “I want to see you, Atherton, on business.”
Atherton took off his hat, and closed the door with one hand, while he slipped the other arm out of his overcoat sleeve. “Well, to tell the truth, I was going to mingle a little business myself with the pleasure of seeing you.” He turned up the gas in his drop-light, and took the chair from which he had looked across the table at Halleck, when they talked there before. “It's the old subject,” he said, with a sense of repetition in the situation. “I learn from Witherby that Hubbard has taken that money of yours out of the Events, and from what I hear elsewhere he is making ducks and drakes of it on election bets. What shall you do about it?”
“Nothing,” said Halleck.
“Oh! Very well,” returned Atherton, with the effect of being a little snubbed, but resolved to take his snub professionally. He broke out, however, in friendly exasperation: “Why in the world did you lend the fellow that money?”
Halleck lifted his brooding eyes, and fixed them half pleadingly, half defiantly upon his friend's face. “I did it for his wife's sake.”
“Yes, I know,” returned Atherton. “I remember how you felt. I couldn't share your feeling, but I respected it. However, I doubt if your loan was a benefit to either of them. It probably tempted him to count upon money that he hadn't earned, and that's always corrupting.”