rament of
his mother. I told you that with candor, with a decently human humility
appealing to his affections, everything was possible. And remember, he is
strong, stronger than you, John Wingfield! There's a process of fate in
him! John Wingfield, you--" The sentence ended abruptly, as if the doctor
had dropped the receiver on the hooks with a crash.

Phantoms were closing in around John Wingfield, Sr.... His memory
ranged back over the days of ardent youth, in the full tide of growing
success, when to want a thing, human or material, meant to have it....
And in his time he had told a good many lies. The right lie, big and
daring, at the right moment had won more than one victory. With John
Prather out of the way, he had decided on an outright falsehood to his
son. Why had he not compromised with Dr. Bennington's advice and tried
part falsehood and part contrition? But no matter, no matter. He would
go on; he was made of steel.

Again the tanned face and broad shoulders stood between him and the
page. Jack was strong; yes, strong; and he was worth having. All the old
desire of possession reappeared, in company with his hatred of defeat.
He was thinking of the bare spot on the wall in the drawing-room in place
of the Velasquez. There would be an end of his saying: "The boy is the
spit of the ancestor and just as good a fighter, too; only his abilities
are turned into other channels more in keeping with the spirit of the
age!" An end of: "Fine son you have there!" from men at the club who had
given him only a passing nod in the old days. For he was not displeased
that the boy was liked, where he himself was not. The men whom he admired
were those who had faced him with "No!" across the library desk; who had
got the better of him, even if he did not admit it to himself. And the
strength of his son, baffling to his cosmos, had won his admiration. No,
he would not lose Jack's strength without an effort; he wanted it for his
own. Perhaps something else, too, there in the loneliness of the office
in the face of that bunch of roses was pulling him: the thrill that he
had felt when he saw the moisture in Jack's eyes and felt the warmth of
his grasp before Jack left the library.

And Jack and John Prather were speeding West to the same destination!
They would meet! What then? There was no use of trying to work in an
office on Broadway when the forces which he had brought into being over
twenty years ago were in danger of being