As far as going to California is concerned I _was_
going--until a late hour this afternoon. I felt more concern at
leaving my mother than anyone else. You believe that?"

He nodded to what was left of his cocktail.

"Lucy and I may have been talked about, but there was absolutely no
reason why we should have been. We rode together this afternoon and
out of a clear sky she told me that she had fallen out of love with her
husband--for no _reason_ at all, that's the worst of it--and she
doesn't know what to do, and has no friend she feels like talking to
about it, except me. That's why I'm staying. She _asked_ me not to
go. And of course I said I wouldn't."

My father finished his cocktail, and blew his nose.

"Oh," I said, "I'm not infatuated with the situation either."

"Women certainly do beat the Dutch!" said my father. "I suppose she
wants advice, and backing when she doesn't follow it."

"If I can keep her in the path of her duty, father, be sure I will."

"And if you can't?"

"It's a real tragedy," I said. "They were the happiest and most loving
couple in the world, except you and mother, and only a short time ago."

"What time is it?" asked my father.

"I've broken my watch."

"Well, it doesn't matter if we are a little late for dinner."

He cleared his throat, and turned a fine turkey-cock red, and looked
very old-fashioned and handsome.

"I never thought to tell you this," he said; "it's like throwing mud on
a saint. Once your mother came to me and said she didn't love me any
more and that she loved another man and wanted to go away with him."

"I feel as if you'd kicked my feet out from under me."

"It doesn't seem to have come quite to that with Lucy, but it may, and
in some ways the cases are parallel. I took counsel with your
grandfather. He advised me to whip her. When I refused to do that, he
gave less drastic advice, which I followed. I told your mother and the
man that if after a year during which they should neither see each
other nor communicate they still wanted each other, I would give your
mother a divorce. I don't know when they stopped caring about each
other. I think it took your mother less than three months to get over
him. And if he lasted three weeks, why I'm the dog that--he was."

I detected a ring of passionate hatred in my father's voice.

"So she came back to me," he said presently, "in a little less than a
year. Your little sister was your mother's of