"I hardly know, Sally." He was silent, in his turn. "It's no use to ask her, I suppose. You might ask d.i.c.k how much was--er--unaccounted for."

"I might." She nodded with satisfaction. "I will. I shall pay it back.

And I must stop Charlie's gambling. I've got to. I've thought and thought--for a whole day." She laughed shortly. "I'm no nearer than I was in half an hour. Oh, Fox, tell me how."

He was looking at her with a great pity in his eyes. He should have known better. Sally did not like to be pitied. "It's a problem, Sally. I'm afraid you may not be able to stop it altogether--or permanently."

"I thought it might do if--but, perhaps I'd better not tell anybody about it until it's done."

"I commend that idea, in general," Fox replied, smiling, "although a person should be perfectly frank with her lawyer and her physician. If I can be of any a.s.sistance to you, please remember that nothing would please me better. Those places are--wouldn't be easy for you to get into. And, Sally, I should hate to think of your trying it. Can't I do it?"

Sally smiled at him in a way that he liked very much. "I have no idea of trying to get in. And, Fox, how much do you know of those places, as you call them?"

"Not much, but I think I could probably get in."

"Thank you, Fox. There is one thing that you can do and that is to explain to me why Charlie does it. Or, I suppose I know why he does, but explain this if you can. Why haven't I the same desire? I am my father's daughter. Why shouldn't I want to gamble, too, instead of the very idea of it filling me with disgust?"

He sat for some time with a half smile on his lips, gazing at Sally and saying nothing. Sally looked up and caught his eye and looked away again.

"Please tell me, Fox," she said.

"A question of heredity, Sally! Heredity is a subject which I know very little about. n.o.body really knows much about it, for that matter.

A few experiments with peas and guinea-pigs, and, on the other hand, a great deal of theorizing--which means a man's ideas of what ought to happen, made to fit; or rather, the cases chosen to fit the ideas. And neither helps us much when we come to apply them to such a case as Charlie's. But do you really want me to tell you what I think? I'm no authority and the whole thing is a matter of guesswork. You might guess as well as I--or better."

She nodded. "I should like, very much, to know."

"Ah, so should I," he said. "If I only _knew_! I don't. But I will do my best. Well, then, your father had rather a strong character--"

"Oh, Fox!" she protested.

"He did," he insisted. "Even you had to give in to him sometimes, and you are the only one in your family who ever stood up against him--who ever could have. He was lacking in the sense of right, and he had depraved tastes, perhaps, but his tastes grew by indulgence. Your mother--forgive me, Sally--has not as strong a character, in a way, but her sense of right is strong. Perhaps her traditions are as strong."

There were some things which Fox did not know. If he had known all that had pa.s.sed in Mrs. Ladue's heart he might not have spoken so confidently. "You have your mother's tastes,--irreproachable,--her sense of right and your father's strength; a very excellent combination." He laughed gently. "And both strengthened by your early experience. A fiery furnace," he murmured, "to consume the dross."

Sally got red and did not seem pleased. "Go on," she said.

"Charlie got your father's tastes and your mother's lack of strength.

He seems to have no sense of right. He was most unfortunate. He didn't get a square deal. But his very weakness gives me hope. He will have to be watched, for he may break away at any time. There was no leading your father, even in the way he wanted to go. He had to be under strong compulsion--driven."

"Did you ever drive him, Fox?"

"Once," he answered briefly. "It was no fun."

"I remember the time." She sighed and rose slowly. "Well--"

Fox rose also. "Had enough of my preaching, Sally? I don't do it often and I don't wonder you don't like it."

She smiled at him gravely and gave him her hand. "I'm greatly obliged to you, Fox. If you can help me I will ask you to. I promise you that."

He held her hand much longer than was at all necessary and he gazed down at her with a longing which he could not hide. Not that he tried; but she was not looking at him.

"Promise me something else, Sally."

Sally glanced up at him in surprise at his voice. "Anything that I can do, of course," she said.

The look in his eyes was very tender--and pitying, Sally thought.

"Marry me, Sally. Promise me that."

It was sudden and unexpected, to be sure, but was there any reason why the quick tears should have rushed to Sally's eyes and why she should have looked so reproachfully at him? Ah, Doctor Sanderson, you have made a mess of it now! Sally withdrew her hand quickly.

"Oh, Fox!" she cried low, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g. "How could you? How could you?"

He had hurt her somehow. G.o.d knew that he had not meant to. "Why, Sally," he began, "I only wanted--"

"That's just it," she said quickly; and she could say no more and she bit her lip and turned and hurried out, leaving Fox utterly bewildered and gazing after her as if he were paralyzed.

Sally almost ran down the walk and, as she ran, she gave one sob. "He was only sorry for me," she said to herself; "he only pitied me, and I won't be pitied. He only wanted--to help me bear my burdens. Dear Fox!" she thought, with a revulsion of feeling. "He is always so--wanting to help me bear my burdens. Dear Fox! But he _shall_ be true--to her," she added fiercely. "Does he think I will help him to be untrue? Oh, Fox, dear!"

And, biting her lip again, cruelly, she got into the waiting carriage.

CHAPTER XXII

Mr. Gilfeather's saloon was not on Avenue C, in spite of the fact that the Licensing Board tried to confine all inst.i.tutions of the kind to that historic boulevard. Mr. Gilfeather's saloon, to use his own words, was a "high-toned and cla.s.sy place." In consequence of that fact and perhaps on the condition implied in the term, Mr. Gilfeather was permitted to conduct his high-toned and cla.s.sy place on a street where he would have no compet.i.tion. It was a little side street, hardly more than a court, and there was no church within several hundred feet and no school within several thousand. The little street was called Gilfeather's Court, and not by its own name, which I have forgotten; the narrow sidewalk from Main Street to Mr. Gilfeather's door was well trodden; and that door was marked by day by a pair of scraggy and ill-conditioned bay trees and by night by a modest light, in addition.

Mr. Gilfeather may have been grieved by the condition of the bay trees, which were real trees, if trees which have their roots in shallow tubs can be called real. At all events, he had resolved to add to the cla.s.sy appearance of his place, and to that end he had concluded arrangements with the Everlasting Decorating Company for certain palms and ferns, duly set in tubs of earth,--the earth was not important except as it helped in the illusion,--which ferns and palms were warranted not to be affected by heat, dryness, or the fumes of alcohol, and to require no care except an occasional dusting. The men of the Everlasting Decorating Company had just finished the artistic disposal of these palms and ferns--as ordered--about the little mahogany tables, giving to each table a spurious air of seclusion, and had gone away, smiling and happy, having been treated by Mr.

Gilfeather, very properly, to whatever they liked. Mr. Gilfeather wandered now among his new possessions, changing this palm by a few inches and that fern by the least fraction of an inch and, altogether, lost in admiring contemplation.

What if the glossy green leaves were nothing but varnished green paper? What if the stems were nothing but fibre with a covering of the varnished paper here and there? What else were the real stems made of anyway? And the light in the interior of Mr. Gilfeather's was rather dim, having to filter in through his small front windows after pa.s.sing the tall blank wall of the building opposite, and--well--his admiration was not undeserved, on the whole. He came back and leaned against the bar. The bar was by no means the feature of the room. It was small and modest, but of solid San Domingo mahogany. Mr.

Gilfeather did not want his customers to drink at the bar. He preferred that they should sit at the tables.

"How is it, Joe?" he asked, turning to the white-coated barkeeper.

"Pretty good, eh?"

The silent barkeeper nodded.

"Switch on the lights over in that corner," Mr. Gilfeather ordered, "and let's see how she looks." Joe stopped wiping his gla.s.ses long enough to turn to a row of b.u.t.tons. "That's good. Put 'em all on." Joe put 'em all on. "That's better. Now," turning to wave his hand upward over the bar, "light her up."

At his command there appeared on the wall over the bar, a large painting of a lady clad chiefly in a leopard skin and luxuriant golden hair and a charming smile. The lady was made visible by electric lights, screened and carefully disposed, and seemed to diffuse her presence impartially over the room. Unfortunately, there was n.o.body to admire but Mr. Gilfeather and Joe, the barkeeper, and there is some doubt about Joe's admiration; but she did not seem to mind and she continued to smile. As they looked, the outer door opened silently and closed again. Mr. Gilfeather and Joe, warned by the sudden draught, turned.

"h.e.l.lo, Ev," said Mr. Gilfeather. "What do you think of it?" He waved his hand inclusively. "Just got 'em."

Everett inspected the palms and ferns solemnly. "Very pretty. Very good. It seems to be good, strong paper and well varnished. I don't see any imitation rubber plants. Where are your rubber plants?"

"Eh?" asked Mr. Gilfeather, puzzled. "Don't you like it? They could have furnished rubber plants, I s'pose. Think I ought to have 'em?"

"Nothing of the kind is complete without rubber plants," Everett replied seriously.