He had been criminally negligent of Eunice.  This realization was accompanied by no corresponding warmth of parenthood; there was no quickening of blood at the thought of his daughter, but only a newborn condemnation of his neglected, proper pride.  He had, thoughtlessly, descended to a singularly low level of conduct.  And it must abruptly terminate.  Jasper Penny had not seen Eunice for seven, nine, months; he would remedy this at once, supervise advantages, a proper place, for her.  Afterward Essie and himself could make a mutually satisfactory agreement.

XI

Throughout an excellent dinner, terrapin and bass, wild turkey with oysters and fruit preserved in white brandy, he maintained a sombre silence.  His mother, on the right, her sister opposite—­Phebe’s place seemed scarcely emptier than when she had actually occupied it—­held an intermittent verbal exchange patently keyed to Jasper Penny’s mood.  They were women with yellow-white, lace-capped hair, blanched eyebrows and lashes, and small, quick eyes on hardy, reddened faces.  Gilda Penny was slightly the larger, more definite; Amity Merken had a timid, almost furtive, expression in the opulence of the Penny establishment, while Gilda was complacent; but otherwise the two women were identical.  Their dresses were largely similar—­Amity’s a dun, Gilda Penny’s grey, moire silk, high with a tight lace collar, and bands of jet trimming from shoulder to waist, there spreading over crinoline to the floor.  Lace fell about their square, capable hands, and Gilda wore broad, locked bracelets checked in black and gold.

Sherry, in blue cut decanters stoppered with gilt, gave place to port.  An epergne of glass and burnished ormolu, in the form of supporting oak leaves, with numerous sockets for candles, was set, filled with fruit, in the centre of the table; silver lustre plates were laid; but Jasper Penny heedlessly fingered the stem of a wine glass.  He said suddenly, “I’m going to the city this afternoon.”

“Is it safe yet?” his mother queried doubtfully.  “Hadn’t you better wait till to-morrow, when you can drive easily, or without stopping at a tavern?”

He looked up impatiently.  “I shall go by the railroad,” he stated decisively.  “Can’t you understand that, with the future of iron almost dependent on steam, it is the commonest foresight for me to patronize such customers as the Columbia Railway!  I have no intention of adding to the ignorant prejudice against improved methods of travelling.”

“There’s your arm,” she insisted with spirit.

“An untried engine.  The Hecla works along smoothly at twenty miles an hour.”  Amity cast a glance of swift appeal at her sister, but Gilda Penny persisted.  “Ungodly,” was the term she selected.  Jasper ignored her.  He had decided to straighten the tangled affair of Eunice at once; he would see Essie that evening, arrive at an understanding about the child’s future.  It would be even more difficult to terminate his connection with Essie herself.  That, he now recognised, was his main desire.  The affair had actually died before Phebe; but its onerous consequences remained, blighting the future.