Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/171

 idleness, godlessness, extravagance, drinking—and worse.

"Worse, I feared, from the company he kept," charged his father; "I feared, but did not prove until this . . . episode with you."

Lida started to speak but at this Jay touched her; and his father silenced her by raising his voice: "I am not charging that chiefly to you. Adam's excuse to God never made, to a man, Eve the chief sinner. I blame my son far more than you; but I blame you."

Lida sank back.

"Yet I know you are young to blame; the lack in you rose with your rearing and from your idle, profligate friends, your circle never brought up to revere work or know the meaning of self-respect."

It was at this, when his father was embarked again on generalities and Jay was off guard, that Lida unexpectedly struck.

"There isn't much of a code left in my crowd, father Rountree," she admitted to him and he listened, "but there's this much; a man doesn't make the girl run all the risk. If she needs a new name, he comes through for her; he gives her a married name for a year or so, anyway."

She was on her feet and she thrust herself away from Jay.

"That's not much of the ten commandments but it's something; and something else goes with it! Nobody in my crowd puts up a man of a different sort to make money out of him. That's what I ran across when Jay left me in your daughter's house. You see, her husband had a house guest. He wasn't your sort but there was business for them in him. I didn't allow for that; Jay didn't either. I sup-