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"Listen, Marjorie; if a girl loves a man she ought to be willing to trust him over a dreadful bungle until he could straighten things out and make good again that's true, isn't it?" "Billy Burgeman! What do you mean?" "Just answer my question. If a girl loves a man she'll trust him, won't she?" "I suppose so." "You know she would, dear. What would the man do if she didn't?"
Burgeman, senior, had been ill then confined to his room; but the next day his condition had become alarming. He was now dying at his home in Arden and his son could not be found. These last two statements were not merely gossip, but facts. Patsy listened impatiently to the parlor maid arguing the matter of Billy's guilt with the butler.
That's why he has never taken Billy into business with him. He is making Billy win his spurs on his own merits; and he's not going to let him into the firm until he's worth at least five thousand a year to some other firm. Oh, Mr. Burgeman has excellent ideas about bringing up a son! Billy ought to amount to a great deal." "Meaning money or character?" inquired Patsy.
Patsy sprang to her feet; but Burgeman senior had reached forward quickly and caught her skirt, holding it in a marvelously firm grip. "Then you do know who I am; you've known it all along." "I know you're the master of all this, and your lad is the Rich Man's Son; that's all." "And you think you think I have no right to leave my son the inheritance I have worked and saved for him."
And can you hire the sun to shine by the day, or order the rain by the hogshead?" Burgeman senior was contemplating her with genuine amazement. "I do not believe I have ever heard any one put forth such extraordinary theories before. May I ask if you are a socialist?" "Bless you, no! I am a very ordinary human being, just; principally human." "Do you know who I am?"
Patsy followed the look over her shoulder and shrank away perceptibly. In the doorway of the office stood another man, younger and more pronounced. It could mean but one thing: Billy Burgeman had lost his self-respect along with Marjorie Schuyler and had fallen in with foul company.
Having established the permanent reality of Billy Burgeman to her own satisfaction, Patsy's mind went racing off to conjure up all the possible things Billy and the tinker might think of each other as soon as chance should bring them together.
Strangely enough, it seemed half a lifetime instead of half a week, and Patsy could not fathom the why of it. But what puzzled her more was the present condition of Billy Burgeman, himself.
"A million curses on the house of Burgeman!" quoth Patsy. "Well, there's naught for it but to get off at the next station and go back." The conductor watched her get off with a distinct feeling of relief. He had very much feared she was not a responsible person and in no mental position to be traveling alone.
"The hardest thing in the world. Billy Burgeman has been proud and lonely all his life, and it's an infernal combination. You may know he's out and out aching for a bit of sympathy, but you never offer it; you don't dare. We could never get him to own up as a little shaver how neglected and lonely he was and how he hated to stay in that horrible, gloomy Fifth Avenue house.
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