Addie remained in the drawing-room for only a second:
"I'll go and keep Papa company for a bit," he said.
And he went and looked up his father in his room, where Van der Welcke always smoked his three or four cigarettes after dinner, alone.
"Daddy, am I disturbing you?"
"Disturbing me, my dear fellow? Do you imagine that you ever disturb me? No, you never disturb me. . . . At least, I can count the times when you have disturbed me."
"But I've come to disturb you this time. . . ."
"Well, that's a bit of luck."
"And have a talk with you."
"Good. That doesn't happen often."
Addie knitted his brows, which gave him an expression of sadness:
"Don't be satirical, Father. How can I help it?"
"I'm not being satirical, my dear boy. I accept the inevitable. I've been accepting it now for five days. After dinner I would come up here quietly and smoke my cigarettes in utter resignation. Of those five days, two have been windy and three have been stormy. And I sat here calmly and listened to it all."
"And . . .?"
"And . . . that's all. Life's an insipid business; and the older I grow the more insipid I find it. I don't philosophize about it very much. I never did, you know. . . . But I do sometimes think,
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