, meaningless, musical,
maddening. And Mrs. Schoville sitting there, nursing an expression of
idiotic ecstasy, and understanding no more than I. I could have
strangled her.

"Why, I have stolen away, at night, with your Browning, and locked
myself in like a thief in fear. The text was senseless, I have beaten
my head with my fist like a wild man, to try and knock some
comprehension into it. For my life had worked itself out along one set
groove, deep and narrow. I was in the rut. I had done those things
which came to my hand and done them well; but the time was past; I
could not turn my hand anew. I, who am strong and dominant, who have
played large with destiny, who could buy body and soul a thousand
painters and versifiers, was baffled by a few paltry cents' worth of
printed paper!"

He spilled her hair for a moment's silence.

"To come back. I had attempted the impossible, gambled against the
inevitable. I had sent you from me to get that which I had not,
dreaming that we would still be one. As though two could be added to
two and still remain two. So, to sum up, the breed still holds, but
you have learned an alien tongue. When you speak it I am deaf. And
bitterest of all, I know that the new tongue is the greater. I do not
know why I have said all this, made my confession of weakness--"

"Oh, father mine, greatest of men!" She raised her head and laughed
into his eyes, the while brushing back the thick iron-gray hair which
thatched the dome of his forehead. "You, who have wrestled more
mightily, done greater things than these painters and versifiers. You
who know so well the law of change. Might not the same plaint fall
from your father's lips were he to sit now beside you and look upon
your work and you?"

"Yes, yes. I have said that I understand. Do not let us discuss
it . . . a moment's weakness. My father was a great man."

"And so mine."

"A struggler to the end of his days. He fought the great lone
fight--"

"And so mine."

"And died fighting."

"And so shall mine. So shall we all, we Welses."

He shook her playfully, in token of returning spirits. "But I intend
to sell out,--mines, Company, everything,--and study Browning."

"Still the fight. You can't discount the blood, father."

"Why were you not a boy?" he demanded, abruptly. "You would have been
a splendid one. As it is, a woman, made to be the delight of some man,
you must pass from me--to-morrow, next day, t