and speechless, the light died out of
his eyes, his lips relaxed, and his hand went up to arrange the lace at
his throat.

"Shun my example," he said, "shudder at the life I have led. Call me
dissolute. Call me dangerous company. Say that in every way I'm unfit to
be your father--say that I'm an outcast, suitable only as material for
slander. I will agree with you. I will teach you that your judgment is
correct. Let us only set two limits and do not call them virtues. They
are necessities in the life I lead, nothing more. They--"

The sound at the knocker on the front door broke into my father's speech
and stilled it. In the pause, while the echoes died away, he shrugged his
shoulders negligently, and settled himself back in his chair.

"My son," he sighed, "allow me to point out the misfortune of being a
man of affairs. They will never adjust themselves to the proper time and
place. Brutus, the two gentlemen about whom I was speaking--show them in
at once. And you, my son, there is no need for you to leave. The evening
is young yet."

"Where are you, Shelton?" came a sharp, authoritative voice from the
hallway. "Damn this dark passage."

"Open the door, Henry," my father said.

As I did so, two gentlemen entered. The taller, without bothering to
remove his hat, strode over to my father's chair. The other stood
undecided near the threshold, until Brutus closed the door behind him.
Without rising from his chair, my father gave first one and then the
other, the impartial, casual glance of the disinterested observer.

"This," he remarked politely, "comes near to being unexpected. I had
heard you had come to town, but I had hoped to meet you only in some
desolate waste of purgatory. I fear your visitation finds me singularly
unprepared to do the duties of a host. You found the passage dark? Ah,
Lawton, I fear it will be darker still where you are going."

"That's enough, Shelton," interrupted the first gentleman. "I didn't
come here to hear you talk. I've heard you do that often enough in
the old days. You can talk a woman off her feet, but by God, you
can't talk me."

My father waved his hand negligently, as though disavowing some
compliment.

"The same forceful character," he observed gently, "the same blunt
candor. How refreshing it is, Lawton, after years of intrigue and
dissimulation. My son, this is Mr. Lawton, an old, but he will pardon me
if I do not add--a valued acquaintance."

For a moment Mr. Lawto