him no
introspection: only anger.

"What right have you to put such impudent questions to us, anyway," he
demanded hotly. "Who the devil are you to intrude on us in this fashion?
You'd best get out before I have you put out."

The tall man made no move to rise from his chair as Roger stood
threateningly above him. He merely turned his hands up in a quaint
gesture of deprecation.

"Bless your heart, young chap, _I'm_ not putting any questions. If
you'll glance at my card, you'll notice that my business comes before my
name. I'm simply the spokesman of a newspaper ..."

"Newspaper!" sneered Roger. "Do you call that anarchist rag a
newspaper?"

But the other man refused to be interrupted. He proceeded equably. "And
that newspaper, in turn, is simply the spokesman of the public. It's the
public that wants to know _who_ you are--and _what_ you are--not I.
Personally, to be quite candid, I don't care a farthing. But ..."

"Well, and what right has the public to come prying into our private
affairs?" interrupted Roger again. "It's none of their business. This is
supposed to be a free country. Why don't you give law-abiding private
citizens a little freedom and privacy? You force your way in where you
aren't wanted and insult us and then say it's because the public wants
to know. What business is it of the public's what we do and what we
think?"

The stranger smiled benignly.

"My dear young man," he said calmly, as he folded up his newspaper and
fitted it into his pocket. "That's old, old stuff. You're 'way behind
the times. That rode into the discard on the tumbrels of the Revolution.
As an individual, nobody cares a rap about you. As the possessor of a
great fortune, the public is very keenly interested in your lightest
thought. But I'm not going to attempt to give you a lesson in elementary
history. Your sister can, I am sure, do that for me."

He turned to her with the same galling indifference that had so offended
Roger before. She could not but admire the assurance of his manner in
the face of such open hostility.

"Miss Wynrod," he went on calmly, "I do hope you will talk to me
frankly. Won't you tell me what you honestly think of your relations,
first to this business at Algoma, and then ..."

"Don't say a word," interrupted Roger. "Remember the sheet he
represents."

Judith did remember, and the recollection made her angry. She smarted
still at the cartoons and denunciatory editorials in which she had