Mr. Thomas was there.  He also was proud, and after the performance he waited for Kitty at the stage door and went forward to meet her as she came out.  The look she gave him stopped him, and he let her pass without a word.

“Who ’d ‘a’ thought,” he mused, “that the kid had that much nerve?  Well, if they don’t want to find out things, what do they come to N’ Yawk for?  It ain’t nobody’s old Sunday-school picnic.  Guess I got out easy, anyhow.”

Hattie Sterling took Joe home in a hansom.

“Say,” she said, “if you come this way for me again, it ’s all over, see?  Your little sister ’s a comer, and I ’ve got to hustle to keep up with her.”

Joe growled and fell asleep in his chair.  One must needs have a strong head or a strong will when one is the brother of a celebrity and would celebrate the distinguished one’s success.

XIII

THE OAKLEYS

A year after the arrest of Berry Hamilton, and at a time when New York had shown to the eyes of his family so many strange new sights, there were few changes to be noted in the condition of affairs at the Oakley place.  Maurice Oakley was perhaps a shade more distrustful of his servants, and consequently more testy with them.  Mrs. Oakley was the same acquiescent woman, with unbounded faith in her husband’s wisdom and judgment.  With complacent minds both went their ways, drank their wine, and said their prayers, and wished that brother Frank’s five years were past.  They had letters from him now and then, never very cheerful in tone, but always breathing the deepest love and gratitude to them.

His brother found deep cause for congratulation in the tone of these epistles.

“Frank is getting down to work,” he would cry exultantly.  “He is past the first buoyant enthusiasm of youth.  Ah, Leslie, when a man begins to be serious, then he begins to be something.”  And her only answer would be, “I wonder, Maurice, if Claire Lessing will wait for him?”

The two had frequent questions to answer as to Frank’s doing and prospects, and they had always bright things to say of him, even when his letters gave them no such warrant.  Their love for him made them read large between the lines, and all they read was good.

Between Maurice and his brother no word of the guilty servant ever passed.  They each avoided it as an unpleasant subject.  Frank had never asked and his brother had never proffered aught of the outcome of the case.

Mrs. Oakley had once suggested it.  “Brother ought to know,” she said, “that Berry is being properly punished.”

“By no means,” replied her husband.  “You know that it would only hurt him.  He shall never know if I have to tell him.”

“You are right, Maurice, you are always right.  We must shield Frank from the pain it would cause him.  Poor fellow! he is so sensitive.”