I
"Well, he has done it now, confound his nerve!" said Anthony Fox, Sr.,
in a tone of almost triumphant fury. He spread the loosely written
sheets of a long letter on the breakfast table. "Here I am, just out of
a sick-bed!" he pursued fretfully; "just home from a month's idling
abroad, and now I'll have to go away out to California to lick some
sense into that young fool!"
"For Heaven's sake, Tony, don't get yourself all worked up!" said
handsome, stately Mrs. Fox, much more concerned for father than for
son. She sighed resignedly as she folded a flattering request from her
club for an address entitled, "Do We Forget Our Maids?" and gave him
her full attention. "Read me the letter, dear," said she, placidly.
"Of course I always knew some woman would get hold of him," said
Anthony, Sr., fumbling blindly for his mouth with a bit of toast, his
eyes still on the letter; "but, by George, this sounds like Charlie
Ross!"
"Woman!" repeated Mrs. Fox, with a relieved laugh. "Buddy's in love, is
he? Don't worry, Tony, it won't last! Of all boys in the world he's the
least likely to be foolish that way!"
"Of all boys in the world he's the kind that is easiest taken in!" said
his father, dryly, securing the toast at last with a savage snap.
"H-m--she's his landlady! Keeps fancy fowls and takes boarders--ha!
Says they rather hope to be married in June. This has quite a settled
tone to it, for Buddy. I don't like the look of it!"
"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Fox, with dawning uneasiness. "You don't mean to
say he considers himself seriously engaged? At twenty! And to his
landlady, too--I never heard such nonsense! Buddy's in no position to
marry. Who IS the girl, anyway?"
"GIRL is good!" said the reader, bitterly. "She's thirty-two!"
Mrs. Fox, her hand hovering over a finger-bowl, grew rigid.
"Thirty-two!" she echoed blankly. Then sharply: "Anthony, do you think
you can stop it?"
"I'll do what I can, believe me!" he assured her grimly. "Yes, sir,
she's thirty-two! By the way, Fanny, this letter's already a month old.
Why haven't I had it before?"
"You told them to hold only the office mail while you were travelling,
you know," Mrs. Fox reminded him. "That one evidently has been
following you. Anthony, can Tony marry without your consent?"
"No-o, but of course he's of age in five months, and if she's got her
hooks deep enough into him, she--oh, confound such a complication,
anyway!"
"It looks to me as if she wanted his money," said Mrs. Fox.
"H-m!" said his father, again deep in the letter. "That's just occurred
to you, has it? Poor old Buddy--poor old Bud!"
"Oh, he'll surely get over it," said Mrs. Fox, uncertainly.
"He may, but you can bet SHE won't! Not before they're married, anyway.
No, Bud's the sort that gets it hard, when he does get it!" his father
said. "There's a final tone about the whole thing that I don't like.
Listen to this!" He quoted from the letter with a rueful shake of the
head. "'I don't know what the darling girl sees in me, dad, but she has
turned down enough other fellows to know her own mind. At last I
realize what Mrs. Browning's wonderful sonnets--'"
"He DOESN'T say that?" ejaculated the listener, incredulously.
"'She doesn't know I am writing you,'" Mr. Fox read on grimly,
"'because I don't want her to worry about your objecting. But you won't
object when you know her. She doesn't care anything about money, and
says she will stick by me if we have to begin on an
eighty-dollar-a-month job. You don't know how I love her, dad; it has
changed my whole life. It's not just because she's beautiful, and all
that. You will say that I am pretty young, but I know I can count on
you for some sort of job to begin with, and things will work out all
right.'"
"H-m!" said Mrs. Fox. "Yes, you're right, Tony. This is serious!"
"All worked out, you see," said the man, gloomily, as he drummed
absently on the letter.
"Oh, Anthony, I can't help thinking of the Page boy, and that awful
woman! Anthony, shall I go? Could I do any good if I went?"
"No," he said thoughtfully. "No, I'll go myself. Don't worry, Fanny,
there's still time. Isn't it a curious thing that it's a quiet little
fellow like Bud that--well, we'll see what can be done. I'll talk to
this woman. She may think he has money of his own, you know. I'll buy
her off if I can. Perhaps I can get him to go off somewhere with me for
a trip. I'll see. Barker can look me up a train, and things here will
have to wait. You'll see about my things, will you, Fanny--have 'em
packed? Oh, and here's the letter--pretty sick reading you'll find it!"
"Be gentle with him!" said Mrs. Fox, deep in the boy's letter.
"Thirty-two! Why, she might be his mother--in some countries she might,
anyway. Anthony!"--her voice stopped him at the door--"IS her name
Sally Mix?"
"Apparently," he said. "Can you beat it? It sounds like a drink!"
"Well," said Mrs. Fox, firmly, as if the name clenched the matter, "it
must be STOPPED, that's all! Sally Mix! I hope she's WHITE!"