She reached out, placing her hand pat across his mouth, and, in the languid air of the room, shuddering so that her lips trembled.

“Charley—­for God’s sake—­it—­it’s a sin to talk that way!”

“O God, I know it, girl!  I’m all muddled—­muddled.”

He let his forehead drop against her arm, and in the long silence that ensued she sat there, her hand on his hair.

The roar of traffic, seventeen stories below, came up through the open windows like the sound of high seas, and from where she sat, staring out between the pink-brocade curtains, it was as if the close July sky dipped down to meet that sea, and space swam around them.

“O God!” he said, finally.  “What does it all mean—­this living and dying—­”

“Right living, Charley, makes dying take care of itself.”

“God! how he must have died, then!  Like a dog—­alone.”

“’Sh-h-h, Charley; don’t get to thinking.”

Without raising his head, he reached up to stroke her arm.

“Honey, you’re shivering.”

“No-o.”

“Everything’s all right, girl.  What’s the use me trying to sham it’s not.  I—­I’m bowled over for the minute, that’s all.  If it had to come, after all, it—­it came right for my girl.  With that poor old man out there, honey, living alone like a dog all these years, it’s just like putting him from one marble mausoleum out there on Kingsmoreland Place into one where maybe he’ll rest easier.  He’s better off, Loo, and—­we—­are too.  Hand me the paper, honey; I—­want to see—­just how my—­poor old man—­breathed out.”

Then Mrs. Cox rose, her face distorted with holding back tears, her small high heels digging into and breaking the newspaper at his feet.

“Charley—­Charley—­”

“Why, girl, what?”

“You don’t know it, but my sister, Charley—­Ida Bell!”

“Why, Loo, I sent off the message to your mama.  They know it by now.”

“Charley—­Charley—­”

“Why, honey, you’re full of nerves!  You mustn’t go to pieces like this.  Your sister’s all right.  I sent them a—­”

“You—­you don’t know, Charley.  My sister—­I swore her an oath on my mother’s prayer-book.  I wouldn’t tell, but, now that he’s dead, that—­lets me out.  The will—­Charley, he made it yesterday, like he always swore he would the next time you got your name on the front page.”

“Made what, honey?  Who?”

“Charley, can’t you understand?  My sister Ida Bell and Brookes—­your father’s lawyer.  She’s his private stenographer—­Brookes’s, honey.  You know that.  But she told me last night, honey, when I went home.  You’re cut off, Charley!  Your old man sent for Brookes yesterday at noon.  I swear to God, Charley!  My sister Ida Bell she broke her confidence to tell me.  He’s give a million alone to the new college hospital.  Half a million apiece to four or five old people’s homes.  He’s give his house to the city with the art-gallery.  He’s