"Oh, how happy we were this afternoon," she said, for the moment almost breaking down. But immediately the Spartan courage which was at the bottom of her character prevailed. She drew herself up, saying so quietly that he was surprised:

"Bojo, we mustn't deceive ourselves. This is the end, I know it.

Whatever is to come we must help immediately."

"Yet I still feel, I can't help it, that something may have happened. He may have been able to do something to-day."

"I wish I could feel so," she said sadly.

With her hand still in his she led the way into the great library, which seemed a region of mystifying and gloomy things, lit only by the lights of the desk lamps.

"All we can do is to wait," she said.

"Have you seen your mother?" he said at last.

She shook her head. "It is useless. I have no influence over her. Doris perhaps, or Doris' husband; she might do something for fear of what others might think of her, but she wouldn't do it for me."

"I can't understand it at all," he said, shaking his head.

"I can," she said quietly. "My mother doesn't love him. She has never loved him. She married him just as Doris and Dolly married, for money, for position."

"But even then--"

"Yes, even then," she took up with a laugh that had tears in it.

"Wouldn't you think that for the sake of the family name and honor, out of just simple ordinary grat.i.tude for what had been given her, she would part with the half, even a third of her fortune? But you do not know my mother. When she has made up her mind nothing will ever change it."

"Let us hope you are wrong."

She laughed again and began walking up and down, her hands clenched, trying to think of some way out.

"Poor Dad, just when he needs all his courage to go on fighting! This, too, has broken him up. That's the only sort of a blow he couldn't get over."

The butler came in at this moment, announcing dinner.

"No, no; not for me," she said. "I couldn't; but you, perhaps?"

"No, not until your father comes back."

The butler went out. Bojo held out his hand to her, saying: "Come here; sit down by me." Worn out by the strain of emotions, she obeyed quietly.

She came to take a seat on the sofa beside him, looked a moment into his eyes, saw the depths of tenderness and sympathy there and with a tired, fleeting smile laid her head gratefully on his shoulder.

It was almost eleven o'clock before Drake came wearily in. They were exhausted with the long tensity of their vigil, waiting for every sound that would announce his arrival, but at his entrance they stood up, vibrantly alert. One glance at Drake, at the hunted and hara.s.sed look across his forehead told Bojo that the worst had happened. Patsie went to her father bravely with a steady smile that never wavered and put her arms around his neck.

"Pretty bad, isn't it, Dad?" she said.

He nodded, incapable for the moment of speech.

"I am so sorry. Never mind, even if we have to begin at the bottom we will win out again."

Bojo had come up and taken his free hand, looking in his eyes anxiously for the answer.

"I guess the game is up," said Drake at last. "There is only one chance, and though I swore I never would do it--" he stopped a moment, running his hand over Patsie's golden curls, "I guess I'll have to swallow my pride," he said.

"You're going to her," said the daughter, shuddering.

"Once more," he said, grimly.

Leaving her he went to the little table by the desk and poured out a stiff drink.

"Whew, what a day! Two hours more and I might have pulled through; I thought I had it all fixed up, but that Clearing House mess ended that!

You can't sell men eggs at five cents a piece when they know to-morrow they can get the same at three cents."

He tried to smile, but back of it all Bojo was alarmed to see the disorder in the physical and moral man which had gained over him since yesterday. Despite Drake's determination to a.s.sume a stoic att.i.tude he felt the biting bitterness and revolt that was gnawing at his soul.

Patsie wanted him to sit down to rest a moment, to have something, if only a morsel, brought in, but he refused absent-mindedly.

"No, no, I must get it over with. I must know where I stand."

Still he delayed his departure, evidently revolting against the role which he had determined to play.

"Your mother is home?" he said abruptly.

"She is home--in her room," said Patsie.

He took a final turn before at last making up his mind, then he gave a short gesture of his hand towards them, saying:

"Wait."

The next moment he went out, not with the old accustomed swinging gait, but with a lagging step as though already convinced of the futility of his errand.

"He is doing it for his daughters," thought Bojo; "only that would make him so humble himself." He felt with a little compunction that he had judged Drake rather harshly, for in these last interviews it had seemed to him at times that there had been an absence of that gameness which in his mind he would like to have a.s.sociated with the romantic figure of the manipulator. Now with the secrets of the household laid bare to him he felt strongly the inner vulnerability of such men. Able outwardly to defy the great turns of fortune and present a smiling front to adversity, yet unable to resist the mortal blow which strikes at the vital regions in their sentiments and their affections. Implacable as he had been, neither giving nor asking quarter in his struggles with his own kind, Bojo at length realized the tenderness and pride amounting almost to a weakness with which he idolized his own. What he had seen working in the soul of the man in this last half hour made him feel more than simply the ruin of his worldly possessions. The moment was too tense for words, the issue too tremendous. They sat side by side, his hand over hers, staring ahead, waiting.

Ten minutes, half an hour elapsed without a sound. He pictured to himself to what arguments and entreaties the desperate father must resort, trying through his inexperience to visualize the drama in one of these domestic scenes which pa.s.s unguessed.

Patsie heard him first. She sprang up with a sharp intaking of her breath. He rose less precipitately, hearing at last the sound of returning footsteps. The next moment Drake came into the room and stood gazing at the two erect figures of the young man and the young girl.

Then he tried to smile and couldn't. Her instinct guessed on the instant what had happened. She went to him swiftly and put her arms about his shoulders as though to support him.

"Never mind, Dad," she said bravely. "Don't you care, money isn't everything in this world. Whatever happens, you've got me."

CHAPTER XXIX

THE DELUGE

The next day the deluge broke.