The old man's stricken face shocked Peter. He was as much ashamed of
himself as if he had kicked his father.
"I oughtn't to have told you, I know," he stammered. "Anyhow, not like
this. I'm sorry."
Peter senior gathered himself together and feebly bluffed.
"You needn't be sorry," he blustered in a thin voice at the top of his
throat. "What do I care whether _you_ know or not? There's no disgrace
in looking after my own business, I guess! To please Ena, I've made a
sort of secret of it, that's all. I never 'promised.' I only let her
and other folks it didn't concern suppose I lived in idleness, like
the lords they admire so much. No harm in that! As for you, you're
welcome to know what I do with my time when I go to New York. But it's
none of your business, all the same, and you'd better keep still about
it, or you'll regret your meddling. Who told you? That's what I want
to get at. Who stuffed you up to the neck with all that damned
nonsense about 'sweat and tears?' I bet it's the same man who tried to
blackmail me with my own son about my going to the Hands nights."
"It wasn't a man who told me," said Peter, "it was a woman--or,
rather, a girl.
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