Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/109

 his daughter, and there was anxiety in his hoarse voice. "Your digestion feels all right so far to-day, don't it, Baby?"

Her response was a momentary glare at him and nothing more. The steward had returned, bringing a large dish of hors d'œuvres which he presented first to Tinker. "Are you going to keep the man waiting at your elbow all day?" Mrs. Tinker said sharply. "If you don't want any of what he's got, tell him so and give the rest of us a chance."

Tinker's eyes, genuinely troubled, still rested upon his daughter, and he sighed audibly, then looked at the hors d'œuvres. "I'll take a couple o' sardines," he said feebly. "I wouldn't trust any the rest of it."

After that for a time he was pensive and occupied himself with eating. Now and then, as the constrained repast went through its courses, he glanced with a kind of guilty hopefulness at his wife or with a furtive anxiety at his daughter, but received no encouragement from either of them. They murmured together indistinguishably at times, apparently referring to the Italian dishes set before them; but that was their nearest approach to geniality; and as the playwright was trying all the while to show by his manner that his connection with this party was