some others, and in the engineering school he had imbibed the technical man’s suspicion of those who draw up contracts and specifications only to leave loopholes of escape. “I don’t believe he would ever take a rascal’s retainer,”[28] he went on, adding: “Why don’t you employ him?” [28] It was Adam Vallory’s turn to show embarrassment. “Bert has been coming to the house rather oftener than his boyhood friendship with you would seem to warrant,” he returned half reluctantly. “This morning you gave me your reason for not wishing to take service under Eben Grillage. Can’t you imagine that I may have a somewhat similar reason for not wishing to involve young Oswald in this sorry business of ours?” This was a new surprise for David. “Lucille?” he queried. Adam Vallory nodded. “It can come to nothing, of course. Lucille, herself, would be the first to insist that one with her affliction has no right to become a wife and mother. Yet it has been a great comfort to her to have Oswald dropping in at odd moments, or for an evening. He understands her thoroughly, shares her keen love for music, and all that. He has even taught her to play chess and to do a number of things that we have never thought she was able to attempt. For her sake we mustn’t drag him into this mess of ours, David.” This hesitantly given explanation opened a new[29] field of dismay for David Vallory. As it seemed, there was a separate and distinct disaster reaching out for each member of the little family of three persons; the grim threat hanging over his father, the indefinite postponement of his own embryo love affair, and now this portentous problem of Lucille’s happiness. His love for the blind sister was deep and tender, as it should have been, and at the moment his own affair shrank to inconsequence, as it was constrained to when he realized how heavily the blow would fall upon one who had been sheltered and protected in every way. [29] “You have fully made up your mind to wire for the examiner to-night?” he asked, after another interval filled with blind gropings for a helpful suggestion. Adam Vallory looked away toward the window and through it to the empty country-town street beyond. “There is no use in prolonging the agony, David. The day of reckoning has come, and a few hours one way or another can make
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