e in a mirror which by
chance was opposite him. A glance, and his eyes shifted; somehow, it gave
him no pleasure, but the reverse, to see that handsome face and
well-set-up, well-dressed figure.

"She was marrying me for money," he went on, when he had once more seated
himself, legs crossed and cigarette going reflectively. The idea seemed
new to him--that people with money could marry for money, just as a
capitalist goes only where he hopes to increase his capital. But on
examining it more closely, he was surprised to find that it was not new
at all. "What am I so virtuous about?" said he. "Wasn't _I_ after money,
too? If our circumstances were reversed, what would _I_ be doing?" He
could find but one honest answer. "No doubt I'd be trying to get out of
it, and if I didn't, it'd be because I couldn't see or make a way." To
his abnormally sensitized nerves the whole business began to exude a
distinct, nauseating odor. "Rotten--that's the God's truth," thought he.
"Father was right!"

But there he drew back; he must be careful not to let anger sweep him
into conceding too much. "No--life's got to be lived as the world
dictates," he hastened to add. "I see now why father did it, but he went
too far. He forgot my rights. The money is mine. And, by God, I'll get
it!" And again he started up; and again he was caught and put out of
countenance by his own image in the mirror. He turned away, shamefaced,
but sullenly resolute.

Base? He couldn't deny it. But he was desperate; also, he had been too
long accustomed to grabbing things to which his conscience told him he
had doubtful right or none. "It's mine. I've been cheated out of it. I'll
get it. Besides--" His mind suddenly cleared of the shadow of shame--"I
owe it to mother and Del to make the fight. They've been cheated, too.
Because they're too soft-hearted and too reverent of father's memory, is
that any reason, any excuse, for my shirking my duty by them? If father
were here to speak, I know he'd approve." Before him rose the frightful
look in his father's eyes in the earlier stage of that second and last
illness. "_That's_ what the look meant!" he cried, now completely
justified. "He recovered his reason. He wanted to undo the mischief that
old sneak Hargrave had drawn him into!"

The case was complete: His father had been insane when he made the will,
had repented afterward, but had been unable to unmake it; his only son
Arthur Ranger, now head of the family, owed