n that first day a
hundred years ago. The room was quite the same except that Bill
Gregory's picture had lost prominence while George's stood in the place
of honour--an incentive for new men, although George was confident
Squibs didn't urge certain of his qualities on his youngsters.

Squibs looked older to-night, nearly as old, George thought, as the
disgraceful tweeds which he still wore. Mrs. Bailly sat in the shadows.
George kissed her and sank on the sofa at her side. She put her hand out
and groped for his, clinging to his fingers with a sort of despair. For
a long time they sat without speaking. George put his arm around her and
waited for one or the other to break this silence which became
unbearable. He couldn't, because as he dreamed among the shadows there
slipped into his mind the appearance and the atmosphere of another room
where three had sat without words on the eve of a vital parting. Tawdry
details came back of stove and littered table and ungainly chairs, and
of swollen hands and swollen eyes. He had suffered an unbearable silence
then because he had found himself suddenly incapable of speaking his
companions' language. With these two the silence was more difficult,
because there was too much to say--more than ever could be said.

He started. Suppose Squibs at the very last should use his father's
parting words:

"It's a bad start, but maybe you'll turn out all right after all."

His lips tightened. Would it be any truer now than it had been then? For
that matter, would Squibs have cared for him or done as much for him, if
he had been less ambitious, if he had compromised at all?

One thing was definite: No matter what he did these two would never
demand his exile; and the old pain caught him, and he knew it was real,
and not a specious cover for his relief at not having to see his parents
again. It hurt--most of all his mother's acceptance of a judgment she
should have fought with all her soul.

He stroked the soft hand that clung to his. From that parting he had
come to the tender and eager maternal affection of this childless woman,
and he knew she would always believe he was right.

But she wanted him to have Betty----

He stood up. He was going away from home. She expressed that at the
door.

"This is your home, George."

Bailly nodded.

"Never forget that. Don't let your ideas smoulder in your own brain.
Come home, and talk them over."

George kissed Mrs. Bailly. He put his hands