his yacht with--well, with a little party--to cruise in
the West Indies. Would you prefer that?"

"Certainly not! The Vanderhoof set is wild and godless--I do not wish
to see you keeping company with fools who walk in the broad and easy
way that leads to perdition."

"It is rather a hard choice," said the young man, with a short laugh,
turning toward the door. "According to you there's very little
difference--a fool's paradise or a fool's hell! Well, it's one or the
other for me, and I'll toss up for it to-night: heads, I lose; tails,
the devil wins. Anyway, I'm sick of this, and I'm out of it."

"Harold," said the older man (and there was a slight tremor in his
voice), "don't let us quarrel on Christmas Eve. All I want is to
persuade you to think seriously of the duties and responsibilities to
which God has called you. Don't speak lightly of heaven and hell.
Remember, there is another life."

The young man came back and laid his hand upon his father's shoulder.

"Father," he said, "I want to remember it. I try to believe in it. But
somehow or other, in this house, it all seems unreal to me. No doubt
all you say is perfectly right and wise. I don't venture to argue
against it, but I can't feel it--that's all. If I'm to have a soul,
either to lose or to save, I must really live. Just now neither the
present nor the future means anything to me. But surely we won't
quarrel. I'm very grateful to you, and we'll part friends. Good-night,
sir."

The father held out his hand in silence. The heavy portiere dropped
noiselessly behind the son, and he went up the wide, curving stairway
to his own room.

Meantime John Weightman sat in his carved chair in the Jacobean
dining-room. He felt strangely old and dull. The portraits of
beautiful women by Lawrence and Reynolds and Raeburn, which had often
seemed like real company to him, looked remote and uninteresting. He
fancied something cold and almost unfriendly in their expression, as
if they were staring through him or beyond him. They cared nothing for
his principles, his hopes, his disappointments, his successes; they
belonged to another world, in which he had no place. At this he felt a
vague resentment, a sense of discomfort that he could not have defined
or explained. He was used to being considered, respected, appreciated
at his full value in every region, even in that of his own dreams.

Presently he rang for the butler, telling him to close the house and
not to sit u