Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/353

 "At least she's fed and clothed! Do you know how she came back to me? In rags, and half starved! I was profoundly shocked. Even now, when I think of it, my blood boils."

"She'd be comfortable enough on the L. D. And fed, too—although I think you're wrong about that. They were poor, of course; they didn't have any flunkeys bowing and scraping around, but they did have enough to eat."

That last speech was hardly tactful, but it only hardened in Henry a resolve already made. He would never lift a finger to help Tom McNair. He said so in a variety of ways, some of them rather reminiscent of old Lucius in their luridness.

"And you can tell McNair that for me," he finished.

Mr. Tulloss got up. He was hotter than ever, and the flunkeys had taken his hat. Where the devil was his hat?

"All right, Henry. All right," he said. "No reason for getting excited about it. If Potter's in the shape I think he is I'll take over the L. D. myself. And—" his voice rose somewhat—"I'll put McNair on it too, by God. Then when your girl goes back to him, as she will, she'll have a home anyhow. And no thanks to you!"

He stalked out, located his hat, jerked it from James, jammed it on his head, and got into his taxicab.

When he looked at the meter it said four dollars and eighty-five cents, and he sat in silent fury all the way back. Nevertheless, he had not spent all of the four dollars and eighty-five cents in vain.

Some of Henry's complacency had been destroyed by that visit. At dinner that night—those long deadly dinners where Kay and her father sat across from each other at the massive table and made conversation for the benefit of the servants, and fell into silence the moment they were alone—he looked at her more carefully than he had for a long time. She looked badly. By gad, she looked sick! For the first time in many weeks he addressed a personal question to her.

"How do you feel, Kay? Are you all right?"