, and would have spared her
had that been possible. But he discriminated very clearly between
primary and secondary issues, never sacrificing, as do feeble and
sentimental persons, the former to the latter. In this case the boy had
a right to the stage, and so the mother must stand in the wings. John
Knott possessed a keen sense of values in the human drama which the
exigencies of his profession so perpetually presented to him. He waited
quietly, his hand on the door-handle, looking at Katherine from under
his rough eyebrows, silently opposing his will to hers.

Suddenly she turned away with an impatient gesture.

"I will not come with you," she said.

"You are right."

"But--but--do you think you can really do anything to help him, to make
him happier?" Katherine asked, a desperation in the tones of her voice.

"Happier? Yes, in the long run, because certainty of whatever kind,
even certainty of failure, makes eventually for peace of mind."

"That is a hard saying."

"This is a hard world." Dr. Knott looked down at the floor, shrugging
his unwieldy shoulders. "The sooner we learn to accept that fact the
better, Lady Calmady. I know it is sharp discipline, but it saves time
and money, let alone disappointment.--Now as to all these elaborate
contrivances I've brought down from London, they're the very best of
their kind. But I am bound to own the most ingenious of such
arrangements are but clumsy remedies for natural deficiency. Man hasn't
discovered how to make over his own body yet, and never will. The
Almighty will always have the whip-hand of us when it comes to dealing
with flesh and blood. All the same we've got to try these legs and
things----"

Katherine winced, pressing her lips together. It was brutal, surely, to
speak so plainly? But John Knott went on quietly, commiserating her
inwardly, yet unswerving in common sense.

"Try 'em every one, and so convince Sir Richard one way or the other.
This is a turning-point. So far his general health has been remarkably
good, and we've just got to set our minds to keeping it good. He must
not fret if we can help it. If he frets, instead of developing into the
sane, manly fellow he should, he may turn peevish, Lady Calmady, and
grow up a morbid, neurotic lad, the victim of all manner of brain-sick
fancies--become envious, spiteful, a misery to others and to himself."

"It is necessary to say all this?" Katherine asked loftily.

Dr. Knott's eyes looked very st