tle back
dining-room. The son noticed that the heat had told on his father, and
he blamed himself for keeping him in this dusty, deserted town, while
he completed his laboratory work. The electric cars made a great
whirr, just around the corner, every few moments, and the little strip
of park behind the house was full of the poor people who had crawled
out of their hot holes to get some breathable air in the green spots
abandoned by the rich. Jarvis Thornton cast his eyes lazily over the
dusty library where they had gone for their smoke. Among its tall
rows of sober-looking books he had got his first taste for the life he
was beginning to lead, the life on the whole that seemed to him the
most satisfactory of any he had looked at. There was a gulf between
him and this passion-ridden mob which swarmed about the public parks
in a hot summer; there was, also, a gulf between him and his neighbors
in the contiguous brick boxes, who strove merely to make the boxes
comfortable. And to his father who sat opposite to him, his fine thin
face with the short gray beard occasionally lighted by the red coal of
his cigar, he owed it all. Somehow to-night he felt that he was about
to propose a raid across that gulf, a voluntary abandonment of the
calm, effective position that he had been blessed with.

He had no difficulty in broaching the affair. To discuss a matter with
his father was like talking to a more experienced and patient self.

"Did you ever know the Ellwells?" he began, simply. "One of them was
the old pastor in the Second Church, and his grandson is on the stock
board now." The older man nodded. Then he continued, describing his
first introduction to the family, his impression of the Four Corners,
his first visit there, with clear, simple portraits of the various
Ellwells of this generation. When he came to the slump of Roper
Ellwell, second, he found it less easy to explain how it had involved
him. His last visits to the Four Corners he passed over hastily, and
after a few broken remarks about the woman who had drawn him there, he
came to an awkward silence. His father kept on smoking, as if waiting
for a final statement. As it did not come, he spoke, in a clear,
impartial voice.

"Yes, I have known all the Ellwells except these young people. I was
just out of Camberton when the war broke out. John Ellwell shirked
then; it was not much to do to go to the front. It was in the air to
fight." He paused to let this aspect