e a flash from her eyes. "Do you really
mean it?" she asked.

"Certainly. It must be done."

"My dear, dear, he's too large for----"

"He'll never be too large for it so long as he is a boor and coward,
insults our guests, scandalizes us all, shames his sisters, and treats
his parents with open scorn. He won't try to be like other people and
accept his world as he finds it. His inordinate conceit is a disease. It
is eating up his own life and making our lives miserable. We will cure
it."

He had spoken calmly, but with a low vibration of tone; and as he came
to his feet he looked very tall and terrible. Ray's blood began to rise,
and as he looked about for something undefined he felt the heat and
smelled the smoke of the grass fire of ten years ago.

He knew he was a coward. That was the shame and the curse of his life.
He did not think it had always been so, but believed it had come about
gradually. At first he had not minded the whippings that other boys gave
him because of his temper and his physical inadequacy, for he had
invited the punishment; but when they all learned that his fighting
spirit had weakened, that they could whip him easily, that they need not
wait for provocation, and that he would never tell, they bullied and
hounded and beat him until he had come to know a craven, sordid fear,
which spread from the boys to the whole terrible world in which the
masculine entity must fight for a place.

"I am ready," said Mrs. Gilbert, trying to hide a sigh.

"Come," Mr. Gilbert ordered the boy, looking at him for the first time
in two hours.

The boy quailed before that look, the most dreadful thing he had ever
seen. It made him numb and sick, and when he rose he staggered; for,
though tall, he was slender and had little strength. The weight on his
chest became a pain and fixed on his throat, to choke and torment him.

His mother had gone out. He followed his father, and the three went out
into the back yard, the boy bare-headed. The night was sharp and the
moon very bright. All the boy's power of thought was suspended.

In silence they walked down the terraces of the park-like yard in the
rear. Cap, Ray's dog, his only intimate, came bounding forward for his
young master's unfailing good night, but Mr. Gilbert angrily ordered him
away. The animal, astonished and hurt, slunk away, keeping a watchful
view of the group, and sat down at a distance and gazed in wonder. They
passed through a gate into an or