own rashness in braving so
difficult a world with so modest an equipment. The tragedy of failure
was a commonplace in the little man's experience. So many young dreamers
like his guest were rejected after bitter trials. It was an
inconsequential world, whose denizens chased butterflies and too often
permitted sober worth to perish by the wayside.

At times during the evening Ewing had feared a return of that
distressing malady to which his host was subject, but this he was
happily spared.

When he took a reluctant leave it was with two emotions: a fervent
liking for the wise man who had so generously befriended him, and doubt
of himself, the first he had known. It came like an icy blast out of
summer warmth and shine.

Teevan listened for the door to close on his guest. When he heard this
he sank into his chair and chuckled gaspingly. Presently he drank a
glass of brandy, smiled in remembering pleasure, lighted a cigarette,
and took his post on the hearth rug, his eyes dancing elfishly, his lips
moving.

His son found him so an hour later, for the little man was tireless even
when, lacking an audience, he merely dramatized his own reflections.
Seeing him to be familiarly engaged, Alden Teevan would have withdrawn
with a careless, half-contemptuous nod, but his father detained him with
a gesture, and a sudden setting of his face into purposeful hardness.

"Sit down." He looked into the hall, then closed the door and faced his
son. The latter regarded him with coolly impertinent interest.

"You'd make a ripping conspirator in a melodrama, Randy. What you going
to do now--steal the will?"

Teevan laughed grimly. He crossed back to the hearth rug and took a
fresh cigarette, which he lighted with studious deliberation. His words
followed swiftly upon the first exhalation of smoke, and his eyes
fastened venomously on his son's.

"I'll give you a morsel to jest with--conspirator, indeed!--yes, and a
will. See if that facile wit of yours is up to it, my bonny stripling."
He played with his moment, drawing on the cigarette with leisurely
relish, and gazing into the smoke with eyes of an absorbed visionary.

"Well?" The young man yawned ostentatiously.

"You missed dining with your brother this evening. He was good enough to
break bread at my table."

The young man took a cigarette from the lacquered bowl at his side and
lighted it with the same deliberation his father had shown.

"Really? I didn't know you had ano