--te-he!--yes, it's Jack, now! But he's a good
son, my boy Jack; he's a good son to me and he's all Dysart, all Dysart;
bon chien chasse de race!--te-he! Oui, ma fois!--bon chien chasse de
race."

CHAPTER XIX

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

By the first of January it became plain that there was not very much
left of Colonel Mallett's fortune, less of his business reputation, and
even less of his wife's health. But she was now able to travel, and
toward the middle of the month she sailed with Naida and one maid for
Naples, leaving her son to gather up and straighten out what little of
value still remained in the wreckage of the house of Mallett. What he
cared most about was to straighten out his father's personal reputation;
and this was possible only as far as it concerned Colonel Mallett's
individual honesty. But the rehabilitation was accomplished at the
expense of his father's reputation for business intelligence; and New
York never really excuses such things.

Not much remained after the amounts due every creditor had been checked
up and provided for; and it took practically all Duane had, almost all
Naida had, and also the sacrifice of the town house and country villa to
properly protect those who had suffered. Part of his mother's estate
remained intact, enough to permit her and her daughter to live by
practising those inconsequential economies, the necessity for which
fills Europe with about the only sort of Americans cultivated foreigners
can tolerate, and for which predatory Europeans have no use whatever.

As for Duane, matters were now in such shape that he found it possible
to rent a studio with adjoining bath and bedroom--an installation which,
at one time, was more than he expected to be able to afford.

The loss of that luxury, which custom had made a necessity, filled his
daily life full of trifling annoyances and surprises which were often
unpleasant and sometimes humorous; but the new and arid order of things
kept him so busy that he had little time for the apathy, bitterness, or
self-commiseration which, in linked sequence, usually follow sudden
disaster.

Sooner or later it was inevitable that he must feel more keenly the
death of a father who, until in the shadow of impending disaster, had
never offered him a very close intimacy. Their relations had been merely
warm and pleasant--an easy camaraderie between friends--neither
questioned the other's rights to reticence and privacy. Their mutual