rwarding, perhaps through his lawyer or agents, enough money to keep
him alive. The more Vandover thought of this, the more he became
convinced that such would be his father's decision. The Old Gentleman
had spent the night over it, time enough to make up his mind, and the
fact that he had neither spoken to him nor looked at him that morning
was only an indication of what Vandover was to expect. He fancied he
knew his father well enough to foresee how this decision would be
carried out, not with any imprecations or bursts of rage, but calmly,
sadly, inevitably.

Toward noon his father came into the room, and Vandover turned to face
him and to hear what he had to say as best he could. He knew he should
not break down under it, for he felt as though his misery had reached
its limit, and that nothing could touch or affect him much now.

His father had a decanter of port in one hand and a glass in the other;
he filled the glass and held it toward Vandover, saying gently:

"I think you had better take some of this: you've hardly eaten anything
in three days. Do you feel pretty bad, Van?"

Vandover put the glass down and got upon his feet. All at once a great
sob shook him.

"Oh, governor!" he cried.

It was as if it had been a mother or a dear sister. The prodigal son put
his arms about his father's neck for the first time since he had been a
little boy, and clung to him and wept as though his heart were breaking.

Chapter Eight

"We will begin all over again, Van," his father said later that same
day. "We will start in again and try to forget all this, not as much as
we _can_, but as much as we _ought_, and live it down, and from now on
we'll try to do the thing that is right and brave and good."

"Just try me, sir!" cried Vandover.

That was it, begin all over again. He had never seen more clearly than
now that other life which it was possible for him to live, a life that
was above the level of self-indulgence and animal pleasures, a life that
was not made up of the society of lost women or fast girls, but yet a
life of keen enjoyment.

Whenever he had been deeply moved about anything, the power and desire
of art had grown big within him, and he turned to it now, instinctively
and ardently.

It was all the better half of him that was aroused--the better half that
he had kept in check ever since his college days, the better half that
could respond to the influences of his father and of Turner Ravis, th