Harry perceived all this with a dread so deep that it even drove her to
invoke her husband's aid against this man, who, inexplicable as his
hostility might be, was bent, she firmly believed, upon the ruin of her
darling boy. With Solomon, as she well knew, the fact of his son's
dissipation was not likely to move him to interfere; he saw that the
companionship of Balfour was gradually producing an estrangement between
Charles and the portionless artist's daughter, and so far he cordially
approved of it, nor cared to question by what means this new friend made
himself agreeable. She had no argument available except that of expense,
and, to her astonishment and dismay, this failed to affect her prudent
spouse.
"Just let things be a while," was Solomon's reply, "and mind your own
business. It is quite true the lad's throwing my money in the gutter at
a fine rate; but in the end I shall get it all back again, and more with
it. This Balfour takes me for a foolish doting father, but he shall pay
for all himself before I've done with him. I throw a sprat to catch a
whale; and neither you nor any other fool shall interfere with my
fishing."
Harry dared not say more; her husband had been in the worst of humors
ever since he had returned from Crompton, and was all the more brutal
and tyrannical to her that he had to be civil and conciliatory to his
new friend, and involuntarily indulgent, upon his account, to Charles.
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