It pleased her that he had joined a rich club in New York
which had enough "swell" members to make it pleasant for her to remark
casually, "Father belongs to the Gotham."
When father went to New York in the evening, as he often did, not
returning to Sea Gull Manor till late, and sometimes staying away all
night, he used to say as an excuse to mother or Ena: "I'm going to the
club." After a while it was taken for granted, and he made no excuse
at all. But if Ena had known the mystery of those late evenings she
would have been struck with fear--the fear which comes of finding out
that those we think we know best are strangers to us.
Of all the sad millionaires of New York who pin together the pages of
certain mysterious life chapters not to be read by eyes at home,
perhaps no other had a mystery like that of Peter Rolls. It was now
the one thing that he intensely enjoyed; but it was a guilty, furtive
enjoyment which made a nervous wreck of him and ruined a stomach once
capable of salvation.
Peter junior had never been entirely happy since he left Yale at
twenty-three. It was only then that he began to look life in the face
and see the freckles on its complexion The minute he saw them on that
countenance which should be so beautiful, he wanted to help in some
way to rub them off.
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