'What if he really has the power to stop my
going there, and means to turn them against me!' And his heart quailed.

"Awfully sorry, sir," he said, "if you don't think I'm wild enough.
Anything I can do for you in that line--"

The old man grunted; and realising that he had been quite witty, Bob
Pillin went on:

"I know I'm not in debt, no entanglements, got a decent income, pretty
good expectations and all that; but I can soon put that all right if I'm
not fit without."

It was perhaps his first attempt at irony, and he could not help thinking
how good it was.

But old Heythorp preserved a deadly silence. He looked like a stuffed
man, a regular Aunt Sally sitting there, with the fixed red in his
cheeks, his stivered hair, square block of a body, and no neck that you
could see-only wanting the pipe in his mouth! Could there really be
danger from such an old idol? The idol spoke:

"I'll give you a word of advice. Don't hang round there, or you'll burn
your fingers. Remember me to your father. Good-night!"

The taxi had stopped before the house in Sefton Park. An insensate
impulse to remain seated and argue the point fought in Bob Pillin with an
impulse to leap out, shake his fist in at the window, and walk off. He
merely said, however:

"Thanks for the lift. Good-night!" And, getting out deliberately, he
walked off.

Old Heythorp, waiting for the driver to help him up, thought 'Fatter, but
no more guts than his father!'

In his sanctum he sank at once into his chair. It was wonderfully still
there every day at this hour; just the click of the coals, just the
faintest ruffle from the wind in the trees of the park. And it was
cosily warm, only the fire lightening the darkness. A drowsy beatitude
pervaded the old man. A good day's work! A triumph--that young pup had
said. Yes! Something of a triumph! He had held on, and won. And
dinner to look forward to, yet. A nap--a nap! And soon, rhythmic, soft,
sonorous, his breathing rose, with now and then that pathetic twitching
of the old who dream.

III

1

When Bob Pillin emerged from the little front garden of 23, Millicent
Villas ten days later, his sentiments were ravelled, and he could not get
hold of an end to pull straight the stuff of his mind.

He had found Mrs. Larne and Phyllis in the sitting-room, and Phyllis had
been crying; he was sure she had been crying; and that memory still
infected the sentiments evoked by later hap