al defence. Had that meant an awakening of a sort?

He smiled a little, thinking of her lips.

Their touch had sent to his brain flashes of pure illumination in which
his once great fondness for Betty had stood stripped of the capacity for
any such avid, confused emotions as Sylvia had compelled; flashes that
had exposed also his apparent hatred of the girl Sylvia as an obstinate
love, which, unable to express itself according to a common-place
pattern, had shifted its violent desires to conceptions of wrongs and
penalties. Blinded by that great light, he asked himself if his
ambition, his strength, and his will had merely been expressions of his
necessity for her.

Of her words and actions immediately afterward he didn't pretend to
understand anything beyond their assurance that Dalrymple's romance was
at an end. Not a doubt crept into his strange and passionate exaltation.

He was surprised to find himself at his destination. When he reached his
apartment he got out the old photograph and the broken riding crop, and
with them in his hands sat before the fire, dreaming of the long road
over which they had consistently aided him. He compared Sylvia as he had
just seen her with the girlish and intolerant Sylvia of the photograph,
and he found he could still imagine the curved lips moving to form the
words:

"You'll not forget."

He lowered his hands, and took a deep breath like one who has completed
a journey. To-night, in a sense, he had reached the heights most
carefully guarded of all.

XVIII

He heard the ringing of the door bell. His servant slipped in.

"Mr. Lambert Planter, sir."

George started, placed the crop and the photograph in a drawer, and
looked at the man with an air of surprise.

"Of course, I should like to see him. And bring me something on a tray,
here in front of the fire."

Lambert walked in.

"Don't mind my coming this way, George?"

"I'm glad I'm no longer 'Morton'," George said, dryly. "Sit down. I'm
going to have a bite to eat."

He glanced at his watch.

"Good Lord! It's after ten o'clock."

"Yes," Lambert said, choosing a chair, "there was a lot to talk about."

Little of the trouble had left Lambert's face, but George fancied
Sylvia's brother looked at him with curiosity, with a form of respect.

"I'm glad you've come," George said, "but I don't intend to apologize
for what I did this evening. I think we all, no matter what our
inheritance, fight without thought of