gh a harassing day, and he was unaware that
it was not Austen's opposition, but Austen's smile, which set the torch
to his anger. Once, shortly after his marriage, when he had come home in
wrath after a protracted quarrel with Mr. Tredway over the orthodoxy of
the new minister, in the middle of his indignant recital of Mr. Tredway's
unwarranted attitude, Sarah Austen had smiled. The smile had had in it,
to be sure, nothing of conscious superiority, but it had been utterly
inexplicable to Hilary Vane. He had known for the first time what it was
to feel murder in the heart, and if he had not rushed out of the room, he
was sure he would have strangled her. After all, the Hilary Vanes of this
world cannot reasonably be expected to perceive the humour in their
endeavours.

Now the son's smile seemed the reincarnation of the mother's. That smile
was in itself a refutation of motive on Austen's part which no words
could have made more emphatic; it had in it (unconsciously, too)
compassion for and understanding of the Honourable Hilary's mood and
limitations. Out of the corner of his mental vision--without grasping
it--the Honourable Hilary perceived this vaguely. It was the smile in
which a parent privately indulges when a child kicks his toy locomotive
because its mechanism is broken. It was the smile of one who, unforgetful
of the scheme of the firmament and the spinning planets, will not be
moved to anger by him who sees but the four sides of a pit.

Hilary Vane grew red around the eyes--a danger signal of the old days.

"Take the suit," he said. "If you don't, I'll make it known all over the
State that you started it. I'll tell Mr. Flint to-morrow. Take it, do you
hear me? You ask me if I have any pride in you. I answer, yes. I'd like
to see what you can do. I've done what I could for you, and now I wash my
hands of you. Go,--ruin yourself if you want to. You've always been
headed that way, and there's no use trying to stop you. You don't seem to
have any notion of decency or order, or any idea of the principle on
which this government was based. Attack property destroy it. So much the
better for you and your kind. Join the Humphrey Crewes--you belong with
'em. Give those of us who stand for order and decency as much trouble as
you can. Brand us as rascals trying to enrich ourselves with politics,
and proclaim yourselves saints nobly striving to get back the rights of
the people. If you don't bring that suit, I tell you I