the while I glimpsed his face before he saw mine. He was smiling
as if pleased with himself and his power; he was rubbing the palms of his
hands together; and I saw that it was John Prather who was like John
Wingfield in manner, pose, and feature. You were like the fighting man,
your ancestor, and your airy confidence was his. And I, witless and
unperceiving, had been won by the same methods of ingratiation with which
John Wingfield had won the assistance of the Ewold fortune for the first
step of his career; with which he had won Alice Jamison and kept me
unaware of his plan while he was lying to her.

"Finally, let us say, in all charity, that your father is what he is
because of what is born in him and for the same reason that the snowball
gathers size as it rolls; and I am what I am for the same reason that the
wind scatter the sands of the desert--a man full of books and tangent
inconsequence of ideas, without sense; a simpleton who knows a painting
but does not know men; a garrulous, philosophizing, blind, old
simpleton, whose pompous incompetency has betrayed a trust! Through me,
men and women came here to settle and make a home! Through me they
lose--to my shame!"

The Doge buried his face in his hands and drew a deep breath more
pitiful than a sob, which, as it went free of the lungs, seemed to leave
an empty ruin of what had once been a splendid edifice. He was in
striking contrast to Mary, who, throughout the story fondly regarding
him, had remained as straight as a young pine. Now, with her rigidity
suddenly become so pliant that it was a fluid thing mixed of
indignation, fearlessness, and compelling sympathy, she sprang to his
side. She knew the touchstone to her father's emotion. He did not want
his cheek patted in that moment of agony. He wanted a stimulant; some
justification for living.

"There is no shame in believing in those who speak fairly! There is
honor, the honor of faith in mankind!" she cried penetratingly. "There is
no shame in being the victim of lies!"

"No! No shame!" the Doge cried, rising unsteadily to his feet
under the whip.

"And we are not afraid for the future!" she continued. "And the other men
and women in Little Rivers are not afraid for the future!"

"No, not afraid under this sun, in this air. Afraid!"

An unconquerable flame had come into his eyes in answer to that in
Mary's.

"The others have asked me to act for them, and I think I may yet save our
rights," said Jac