make a
great difference. I don't know, speaking frankly, that it makes much
difference with me." He turned again to the bookshelves, so that
Musgrave could no longer see his face. Charteris ran his fingers
caressingly over the backs of a row of volumes. "I loved my mother,
Rudolph. I never loved anyone else. That makes a difference." Then he
said, "We Musgraves--how patly I catalogue myself already!--we Musgraves
have a deal to answer for, Rudolph."

"And doesn't that make it all the more our duty to live clean and honest
lives? to make the debt no greater than it is?" Both men were oddly
quiet.

"Eh, I am not so sure." John Charteris waved airily toward Sebastian
Musgrave's counterfeit, then toward the other portraits. "It was they
who compounded our inheritances, Rudolph--all that we were to have in
this world of wit and strength and desire and endurance. We know their
histories. They were proud, brave and thriftless, a greedy and lecherous
race, who squeezed life dry as one does an orange, and left us the
dregs. I think that it is droll, but I am not sure it places us under
any obligation. In fact, I rather think God owes us an apology,
Rudolph."

He spoke with quaint wistfulness. The colonel sat regarding him in
silence, with shocked, disapproving eyes. Then Charteris cocked his head
to one side and grinned like a hobgoblin.

"What wouldn't you give," he demanded, "to know what I am really
thinking of at this very moment while I talk so calmly? Well, you will
never know. And for the rest, you are at liberty to use your
all-important documents as you may elect. I am John Charteris; whatever
man begot my body, he is rotten bones to-day, and it is as such I value
him. I was never anybody's son--or friend or brother or lover,--but just
a pen that someone far bigger and far nobler than John Charteris writes
with occasionally. Whereas you--but, oh, you are funny, Rudolph!" And
then, "Good-night, dear brother," Charteris added, sweetly, as he left
the room.

* * * * *

And Rudolph Musgrave could not quite believe in the actuality of what
had just happened. In common with most of us, he got his general notions
concerning the laws of life from reading fiction; and here was the
material for a Renaissance tragedy wasted so far as any denouement went.
Destiny, once more, was hardly rising to the possibilities of the
situation. The weapon chance had forged had failed Rudolph Musgrave
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