He sat for some moments reading his letters with patient attention,
pinching his lower lip between thumb and finger. My estimate of him had
undergone several changes since leaving the Battery; since leaving deck,
even. I felt somehow that this quiet, sedate person was no longer
apologetic in his attitude towards me. Here he was master, and a subtle
alteration of his demeanour indicated this to me. He sat there, as I
watched him, solid and secure by inalienable right of succession, a son
of that stern, imaginative adventurer, his father; a son, moreover, of
that sea which he served from year to year. I looked up at the
photograph of his wife which he had mentioned, a photograph set in
silver. The soft shadows of the platinotype suited Mrs. Carville.
Evidently this had been taken about the time of her marriage; the fine
modelling of her face and the poise of her head were instinct with
youth. In her eyes I fancied something of the mild expression with which
she accompanied her remark, "He is a good man." On either side of the
silver frame were small pictures of the boys.

Mr. Carville put the two letters in a wire clip and offered me a cigar.

"Now you can see for yourself," said he, "where I live." He laughed.
"I'm one of the few people who haven't got a bad word to say of the
Standard Oil Co. They give me more cubic feet of private space, bigger
cabin space, and better food than any shipowner across the water. They
give me any mortal thing for my engines except time to overhaul them.
The newspapers tell me they're a blood-sucking trust battening on the
body-politic, and so on. Personally ..." and Mr. Carville drew the
stopper from a square bottle, "personally, I find them very decent
people to work for."

I sat looking at him for some time as he busied himself with a drawer
which contained, he assured me, an apollinaris. It struck me that though
he had gained in certain external trappings of the mind since entering
his room, he had ceased to appear to me as a heroic figure. Even the
perception which had appreciated the grandeur of New York, the wit which
had connected St. George with _San Giorgio Maggiore_, seemed to me
incongruous with the present phase of his character. Quite possibly I
had been so drilled in hatred of Standard Oil that I unconsciously
revolted from the notion that any good could come out of that protean
enterprise! And yet, when I reflected, I could not but wonder whether,
after all, he, in his