rt had cast in his lot with McComas and
meant soon to leave for Colorado, he winced. Albert, to him, was still a
boy, and this term in the West but another kind of schooling. "Just as
his mother tried to influence him before," said Raymond to me bitterly,
"so McComas will influence him now." And I could not deny that McComas
had the whip hand. The unintermittency of business correspondence, the
cogency of a place on the payroll....

No, it was not to be denied that Raymond had lost Albert finally.

And Althea went to the train, to see him off--as to another war.

V

"Finally"--perhaps I have used the word too soon.

I dropped in on Raymond, one evening, at his private hotel. It was about
four months after Albert's departure for the West. His quarters seemed
as snugly comfortable as ever, and as completely adapted to his
ultimately discovered personality and its peculiar requirements. Raymond
master of a big house! Raymond leading a public life!

But he himself was perturbed. It was a letter from Albert--it was two or
three letters, in fact.

"He says he is going to marry her."

"Her?"

"Althea. Althea McComas."

Albert, in the West, had done well. He had taken hold immediately,
decisively. The initiative which would never have developed under his
father had been liberated during his war service and was now mounting to
a still higher pitch among the mountains.

"He is going to do," McComas had told me, after the second month. "He is
a wonder," he had said, later.

Be that as it may. McComas was doubtless inclined to the favorable view.
He had determined in advance that Albert was to succeed. Albert was
meeting, successfully, known expectations of success--as a young man
may.

"He started so well," said his father. "And now...."

"And now?"

"Now he wants to marry the daughter of a stable-boy!"

"Raymond," I said; "drop the 'stable-boy.' That was never true; and if
it were it would have no relevancy here and now."

"I should say not! Why, Albert--"

"You have told him? He knows your--He knows the--the legend?"

"He does. And as you see, it makes no difference to him."

"Why should it? Why should he care for early matters that were over and
past long years before he was born? He sees what he sees. He feels what
he feels."

"He feels McComas."

"Why shouldn't he? Who wouldn't?"

Raymond relapsed into a moody silence. I saw, presently, that he was
trying to break from it. He had another consi