e wrong, or
got into these ways of his, if it hadn't been for your forcing him out
of the business when you did. I want you should think whether you're
not responsible for everything he's done since."

"You go and get that bag of mine ready," said Lapham sullenly. "I
guess I can take care of myself. And Milton K. Rogers too," he added.

That evening Corey spent the time after dinner in his own room, with
restless excursions to the library, where his mother sat with his
father and sisters, and showed no signs of leaving them. At last, in
coming down, he encountered her on the stairs, going up. They both
stopped consciously.

"I would like to speak with you, mother. I have been waiting to see
you alone."

"Come to my room," she said.

"I have a feeling that you know what I want to say," he began there.

She looked up at him where he stood by the chimney-piece, and tried to
put a cheerful note into her questioning "Yes?"

"Yes; and I have a feeling that you won't like it--that you won't
approve of it. I wish you did--I wish you could!"

"I'm used to liking and approving everything you do, Tom. If I don't
like this at once, I shall try to like it--you know that--for your
sake, whatever it is."

"I'd better be short," he said, with a quick sigh. "It's about Miss
Lapham." He hastened to add, "I hope it isn't surprising to you. I'd
have told you before, if I could."

"No, it isn't surprising. I was afraid--I suspected something of the
kind."

They were both silent in a painful silence.

"Well, mother?" he asked at last.

"If it's something you've quite made up mind to----"

"It is!"

"And if you've already spoken to her----"

"I had to do that first, of course."

"There would be no use of my saying anything, even if I disliked it."

"You do dislike it!"

"No--no! I can't say that. Of course I should have preferred it if you
had chosen some nice girl among those that you had been brought up
with--some friend or associate of your sisters, whose people we had
known----"

"Yes, I understand that, and I can assure you that I haven't been
indifferent to your feelings. I have tried to consider them from the
first, and it kept me hesitating in a way that I'm ashamed to think of;
for it wasn't quite right towards--others. But your feelings and my
sisters' have been in my mind, and if I couldn't yield to what I
supposed they must be, entirely----"

Even so good a son and brother as this, when