only thing I could do in the way I was told to do it." Yes, he was
sorry for Norman. The poor devil was not getting a square deal.

But MacRae's pity was swiftly blotted out. He had a sudden uncomfortable
vision of old Donald MacRae rowing around Poor Man's Rock, back and
forth in sun and rain, in frosty dawns and stormy twilights, coming home
to a lonely house, dying at last a lonely death, the sordid culmination
of an embittered life.

Let him sweat,--the whole Gower tribe. MacRae was the ancient Roman, for
the moment, wishing all his enemies had but a single head that he might
draw his sword and strike it off. Something in him hardened against that
first generous impulse to repeat to Stubby Abbott what Norman had told
him on the cliff at Squitty. Let the beggar make his own defense. Yet
that stubborn silence, the proud refusal to make words take the place of
valiant deeds expected, wrung a gleam of reluctant admiration from
MacRae. He would have done just that himself.

"Let's get back," Stubby suggested. "I've got the next dance with Betty
Gower. I don't want to miss it."

"Is she here to-night? I haven't noticed her."

"Eyesight affected?" Stubby bantered. "Sure she's here. Looking like a
dream."

MacRae felt a pang of envy. There was nothing to hold Stubby back,--no
old scores, no deep, abiding resentment. MacRae had the conviction that
Stubby would never take anything like that so seriously as he, Jack
MacRae, did. He was aware that Stubby had the curious dual code common
in the business world,--one set of inhibitions and principles for
business and another for personal and social uses. A man might be
Stubby's opponent in the market and his friend when they met on a common
social ground. MacRae could never be quite like that. Stubby could fight
Horace Gower, for instance, tooth and toenail, for an advantage in the
salmon trade, and stretch his legs under Gower's dining table with no
sense of incongruity, no matter what shifts the competitive struggle had
taken or what weapons either had used. That was business; and a man left
his business at the office. A curious thing, MacRae thought. A
phenomenon in ethics which he found hard to understand, harder still to
endorse.

He stood watching Stubby, knowing that Stubby would go straight to Betty
Gower. Presently he saw her, marked the cut and color of her gown,
watched them swing into the gyrating wave of couples that took the floor
when the orchestra began. I