ngely restless and ill at ease, was passing beneath
the window and thus became an involuntary listener to these mad words
from the lips of his young friend.

Straightway there rose to his mental vision a picture--never very far
removed--a picture of a luxurious room in a distant Swiss hotel, the
foremost figure in which was the slender form of a royally fascinating
woman, reclining with reckless abandon upon a magnificent tiger skin,
stretched before the fire. He saw her lavishing her caresses upon the
inanimate head. He heard her purr once more in the vibrant, appealing
tones so like the Boy's.

The stately Englishman passed his hand over his eyes to shut out the
maddening vision, with its ever-fresh pangs of poignant anguish, its
persistent, unconquered and unconquerable despair!

"God help the Boy!" he prayed, as he strolled on into the solitude of
the moonlit night. "No one else can! It is the call of the blood--the
relentless lure of his heritage! From it there is no escape, as against
it there is no appeal. It is the mad blood of youth, quickened and
intensified in the flame of inherited desire. I cannot save him!"

And then, with a sudden flood of tender, passionate, sacred memories, he
added in his heart,

"And I would not, if I could!"

CHAPTER XII

Paul Verdayne had many acquaintances and friends in New York, and much
against their inclination he and the Boy soon found themselves absorbed
in the whirl of frivolities. They were not very favorably impressed. It
was all too extravagant for their Old World tastes--not too magnificent,
for they both loved splendor--but it shouted its cost too loudly in
their ears, and grated on their nerves and shocked their aesthetic
sense.

The Boy was a favorite everywhere, even more so, perhaps, than in
London. American society saw no mystery about him, and would not have
cared if it had. If his face seemed somewhat familiar, as it often had
to Opal Ledoux, no one puzzled his brains over it or searched the
magazines to place it. New York accepted him, as it accepts all
distinguished foreigners who have no craving for the limelight of
publicity, for his face value, and enjoyed him thoroughly. Women petted
him, because he was so witty and chivalrous and entertaining, and always
as exquisitely well-groomed as any belle among them; men were attracted
to him because he had ideas and knew how to express them. He was worth
talking to and worth listening to. He had fo