The Prodigal Father Part 13

"Me? You must get younger eyes than mine, Heriot."

"I can count them," he answered.

"_You_ can! But I thought you'd been complaining you couldn't always recognize people across the street nowadays."

"I can count those chimneys," he repeated. "I've counted them five times, and they come to fourteen each time. I'd like to get some one younger to count them too. Where's Madge Dunbar?"

He started impetuously for the door.

"She's dressing!" cried the horrified lady. "You can't get her in here--you with your coat off, too!"

Mr. Walkingshaw turned back.

"Well, anyhow," said he, "I'll lay you half a crown there are fourteen chimneys on Henderson's house. Will you take it up?"

"When did you hear I'd taken to betting?" she gasped.

He waved aside the reproach airily, much as he waved aside everything she said nowadays, the poor lady reflected. His next words merely deepened her distress.

"Look at my face carefully," he commanded. "Study it--touch it if you like--examine it with a lens--give it your undivided attention while I count twenty."

He counted slowly, while she stared conscientiously, afraid even to wink. "Now, what have you observed?"

"You're looking very well, Heriot," she answered timidly.

"Did you ever see a man of my age look better?"

"N--no," she stammered.

"Well, don't be afraid to say so, for it's perfectly true. Do you mind a kind of deep wrinkle under my eyes? Where's that gone now?"

"I can't imagine, Heriot."

"Well, don't look distressed; it's bonnier away."

"Yes," she said in a fl.u.s.tered voice, "you do have a kind of smoother look."

"Smoother and harder," he replied, prodding his ribs with his fingers.

She gave a little cry of distress.

"You're growing thin! Your waistcoat's hanging quite loose. Oh, Heriot, it's terrible to see you that way!"

Her heart might be a little withered by all those northern winters, with never another heart to keep it warm, but it could still beat faster at a breath of suspicion cast upon her hospitality. She had not been feeding her only brother properly!

"Tell me yourself what you'd like for your dinner!" she entreated him.

He laughed at her genially.

"Pooh! Tuts! Did you ever in your life see me eat a better dinner than I've been taking lately? You might give one a suet pudding oftener, but that's all I have to complain of."

Heriot had always been addicted to suet pudding, but for a number of years past his doctor's opinion had been adverse to this form of diet for a gentleman of gouty habit.

"But what about your gout, Heriot?" she asked.

"Gout? Fiddle-de-dee! Who's got gout? Not I, for one."

He had been glancing complacently at his improved reflection in the mirror. Abruptly he stepped up close to the gla.s.s and examined his visage with unconcealed excitement.

"Good G.o.d!" he murmured.

Then, with much the expression Crusoe must have worn when he spied the footprint, he turned to his sister, and, grasping a lock of hair upon his brow, bent his head towards her, and demanded--

"What color's that?"

"Dear me," she said, "it looks quite brown. I didn't know you had any brown hair left."

He raised his head and looked at her in solemn silence till she began to feel dreadfully confused. Then he bent again.

"Do you notice anything else?"

"N--no; unless your hair's got thicker. But that's not likely at your time of life."

"It is _not_ likely," said he. "It is most improbable--in fact, it is practically impossible; but it is thicker."

He rubbed his chin and gazed at her with the queerest look. Mary had known him since he trundled a hoop, but she never remembered him go on like this before. As for Heriot, he seemed to be debating whether he should spring something still more surprising on her or not. But she looked so uncomfortable already, so totally without the least clue to his mysterious words, so unconscious of anything stranger about him than his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves and loss of weight, that he only uttered something between a gasp and a sigh, and, turning away from her, took up his brushes to smooth his augmented hairs.

"I'll be down to breakfast in a jiffy," he said.

Miss Walkingshaw thought that an odd kind of phrase for Heriot to be using.

CHAPTER IV

Andrew no longer walked to the office with his father in the mornings.

Not that _he_ had anything to do with the altered custom: in fact, he was always most careful to a.s.sure his friends that he had more than once waited as long as five minutes to give his father the opportunity of having his company--if he was wis.h.i.+ng it. But Mr. Walkingshaw was never less than ten minutes late nowadays.

On this particular morning he set forth a full half-hour after his son.

He had been very absent-minded after his talk with his sister,--not even Mrs. Dunbar could keep his attention for more than a moment,--and he had sat for the best part of twenty minutes thoughtfully putting on his boots. One or two acquaintances who saw him on the way from his house to his office often recalled his demeanor that morning. Now he would loiter along with bent shoulders, his hands behind his back, trailing his umbrella and brooding as though he contemplated bankruptcy. Then suddenly his pace would quicken, the umbrella whirled round and round like a Catherine wheel, and with his head held jauntily and the merriest smile he would swagger along like a young blood of twenty-six who had just been accepted by an heiress. And then abruptly he would lapse into his mournful gait.

"I want to see Mr. Andrew," said he, as soon as he was seated in his private room.

The junior partner entered with a melancholy visage and a reproachful eye.

"Oh, you've come at last," he remarked, too quietly to be rude, too pointedly to be pleasant.