things at night that he doesn't want other people to
know about and doesn't want his own son to discover, then he's playing a
double game. And last, when a man sets himself up for a howling saint in
the virtue line and yet plays a double game, why he's a rotter and a
hypocrite, whether he's my father or not, and I'm not going to stand
it." He nodded with drunken solemnity. "I'm going to have it out with
him to-night, you'll see. Come with me if you like----"

"Not I, old man, I've promised to join the ladies, see you later, eh?"
said Cleek, and with a look of unseen contempt at the drink-sodden
figure, he turned abruptly and left the youth to continue his potations
at his own sweet will.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

WHEN TWO AND TWO MAKE FOUR

It would not be overstating the case if one were to say that Cleek's
mind was absolutely in a whirl when he closed the door of the
dining-room behind him and stood alone in the brilliantly lighted hall;
for, added to the loathing contempt he felt for the young reprobate he
had just left, there was the knowledge that this new and unexpected
development threatened to destroy the whole fabric of his theories in
almost every particular.

Not for one moment, heretofore, had he looked upon young Raynor as other
than a shallow, empty-headed wastrel; a mere cuckoo hatched in an
eagle's nest; a thing to be scorned, not dreaded; a mere mischievous
atom that hadn't the courage to be a bird of prey, nor blood enough in
its veins to be dangerous. Now, however---- God! what a riddle life is!
You never know!

The door that led out into the grounds of the Grange was but a rope's
cast distant. He felt that he couldn't trust himself to go in and face
the ladies just yet a while; that he must think over this new and
staggering turn which events had taken: think over it for a time in the
hush and darkness of the outer world; and, turning on his heel, went
swiftly to the door and let himself out.

By this time the night had closed in, the moon had risen, and the
gardens were simply a shadowy place of dark and fragrant mystery, with
here and there a silver arabesque on the earth where the moonlight
shafted through the boughs of trees, and here and there a streak of
yellower radiance where the windows of the house threw man-made light
across the lawn and against the massed green of crowded leaves. Cleek
took to the grass that his footsteps might not be heard, and there, in
the darkest shadow of