ind dwell with a certain sense of shame and self-rebuke on his
own and his father's ideals of human conduct. Even as a schoolboy,
Theodore had come to realize how much more he knew of the ugly side of
life than did his father. But then, old Mr. Carden was quite
exceptional; he knew nothing--or so, at least, his son believed, and
loved him for it--of the temptations, conflicts, victories, and falls
of the average sensual man. Theodore's father had been engaged, at
twenty, to a girl of his own age whom he had not been able to marry
till twelve years later; she had left him a widower with this one
child after five years of married life; and Thomas Carden, as he had
himself once told his son in a moment of unwonted confidence, had been
absolutely faithful to her before the marriage and since her death.

The woman--many people would have said the very fortunate young
woman--who was so soon to become Mrs. Theodore Carden would not
possess such a husband as Thomas Carden had been to his wife. And yet,
in his heart, Theodore was well aware that the gentle girl he loved
would probably be a happier woman than his own mother had been, for
he, unlike his father, in his dealings with the other sex could call
up at will that facile and yet rather rare gift of tenderness which
women, so life had taught him, value far more than the deeper,
inarticulate love....

Carden came back to the prosaic question of his uncle's letter with a
distinct effort. "Have I any one to suggest?" he echoed. "I have no
one to suggest, father. I know, of course, exactly the sort of man
Uncle Barrett is looking for; he's asking us to find him the perfect
clerk every man of business has sought for at some time or other. If I
were you, I should write and tell him that the man he wants us to find
never has to look outside England for a job, and, what is more, would
rather be a clerk here--if he's any sense--than a partner in New
Zealand!"

A smile quivered for a moment over the young man's shrewd face; his
uncle was evidently seeking such a man as he was himself, but such
men, so Theodore Carden was able to tell himself without undue
conceit, were not likely to go into voluntary exile, even for the
bribe of eventual partnership in a flourishing business.

There was a pause, and then again the older man broke the silence with
something entirely irrelevant to the subject which was filling the
minds of his son and himself.

"You haven't looked at the _Post_ t