"What a pre-nineteenth amendment sentiment," the girl dared mischievously. He glowered at her from under his bushy brows.
"You can't switch me off my subject with your flippancy. I repeat, Steve shall have love. I'll get it for him--I'll----" He rose and brandished his stick at the girl. He fell back and leaned his head weakly against the chair. Jerry leaned over him and smoothed back his hair tenderly. He looked up at her with fever-bright eyes and gasped breathlessly:
"I haven't gone--yet. I shan't go till--I've thought of some way to--to yank Steve out of this--this damnable Sam Jones ring you talk about. Give me some tea. Quick! Give it to me--strong. My fool doctor won't let me have anything else. What's Steve doing? Living on your income?" he asked as Judson, after fussing among the tea-things, at a low word from the girl, left the room.
Jerry's cheeks flushed, tiny sparks lighted her eyes as she countered crisply:
"Don't you know your nephew better than to ask that question? He is in a lawyer's office working for the munificent sum of fifteen per." Fairfax choked over his tea.
"D'you mean to tell me that a son-in-law of Glamorgan the oil-king is an office boy? Between you all you've made a mess of it, haven't you? What does your father say to that?"
"He's--he's furious," Jerry answered, as she studied the infinitesimal grounds in her teacup. She gave the tea-cart a little push which removed it from between them. She rose, hesitated, then slipped to her knees before the old man. She looked up at him speculatively for a moment before she commenced to trace an intricate pattern on his stout stick with a pink-tipped finger. Her voice was low and a trifle unsteady as she pleaded:
"Uncle Nick, be friends with me, will you?" A non-committal grunt was her only answer. "Steve won't talk to me. He won't listen to reason. Having made his big sacrifice for the family fortunes by marrying me he is holding his head so high that he'll step into a horrible shell-hole if he doesn't watch out. Dad is furious that he won't live and spend money as befits a Courtlandt, that is, as he thinks a Courtlandt should live and spend, and with that fine illogic, so characteristic of the male of the species, takes it out on me. Steve is so--so maddening. He won't use the automobiles unless he is taking me somewhere, although they were all, with the exception of my town car and roadster, in the garage when I came here. He just commutes and commutes in those miserable trains. Commuting corrupts good manners; he's a--a bear. He and I are beginning all wrong, Uncle Nick." She met the stern old eyes above her before she dropped her head to the arm of his chair. "Steve hates the sight of me and I----"