mean how--"

He nodded. "And so I feel justified in talking to you frankly--not that
I want to prejudice you against Francis, you understand, but just
because"--his head wagged soberly--"_Francis won't do!_" And he looked
at me steadily.

Something like a sharp pain struck through me. Again--and this time from
her own father! I just sat there kind of frozen, you know, except that I
could feel the smile slowly loosening in my face. He moved to a seat
nearer.

"I don't like to seem to be disparaging my own flesh and blood, Mr.
Lightnut," he proceeded gravely, "but the truth is Francis is the only
one of my children that gives me any anxiety."

"Oh!" I felt myself shrink together, my knees slanting away from him.
My dashed monocle hung limp.

He angled closer. "Jack's drinking is bad--that I admit, but
perhaps--h'm--he comes by it naturally; still Jack has never forgotten
that he is a gentleman--the son of a gentleman--and has never been what
you would call fast, but--" His chest lifted under a deep breath--"but
Francis--_whew_!"

"Fast--Frances?" It faltered tremulously from my lips; my cigar dropped
with a soft thud.

His eyes widened. "_Oh_, yes--frightfully!" And he tendered me another
cigar, and I had to light it--he made me! "Of course, the mistake was in
ever sending Francis away to school--not always a wise thing, Mr.
Lightnut, especially when the home life has been too cloistered. I think
the reaction was too much for one so green and inexperienced as Francis.
And extravagance--my!" He lifted his hands. "I thought Jack was bad
enough at Cambridge with a thousand-dollar apartment on the 'Gold
Coast,' as you call it--and, by George, you Harvard men have got the
right name for it!--but Francis beat that in one term's drain on me for
poker losses and--"

"Poker?" I moistened my lips. Then I brightened, for perhaps he meant
bridge--and _that_ was good form, for there was my Aunt Julia, who lived
by it--fact! But his head shook impatiently when I suggested that he
meant this.

"Bridge!" he exploded. "Why, Francis doesn't know bridge from casino!
_Poker_, I tell you, and faro--and all the rest. The plucking was done
nightly at a certain--er--club, the establishment of a gentleman by the
name of McGinty--'Spot' McGinty--oh, you _know_ the place, then?"

For I had gasped audibly. "Only--only by reputation," I responded
hastily.

"Um, dare say it has got 'reputation,' all right. I guess, too, there
are more