ther son."

"Thank God I haven't--but your mother had, and that precious sniveling
grandmother of yours has another grandson. You might recall that when
you chatter of melodrama--and wills. I believe her estate is not one
you'd care to divide."

"What rot are you gibbering with those monkey airs of yours?"

"Delicate as ever in your raillery! Perhaps you think I'm drunk. Perhaps
I am. But I dropped in on your grandmother this afternoon in time to
prevent her clasping that nameless whelp to her breast. A lovely bit I
spoiled, my merry-andrew!--tears and fondlings to-night, a codicil
to-morrow. I'm none too sure there'd have been a codicil, though.
Likelier a new will--'give, devise, and bequeath the sum of one dollar
to my grandson Alden Teevan, who has already wheedled me out of more
than was good for him, and the residue of my estate, both real and
personal, to my beloved grandson, Gilbert Denham Ewing----'"

"Ewing! That chap Nell Laithe brought back with her--that rustic
lout----"

"Have I won your attention, lad? Another item I chance to recall--permit
me, since you've mentioned the lady's name--have you caught the look of
her eye as it rests upon the creature--how it follows him, runs to him,
hangs upon him with sweet tenacity? Have you felt the glow in her voice
as she speaks to him? A woman of the world, young, tender, romantic,
stormed by this Galahad of the hills, who first wins her solicitude by
his helplessness, and then, before the lady quite knows it, coerces her
whole being by sheer masculine dominance. Ah, you haven't read
that--only enough of it to puzzle you, perhaps enrage you. You haven't
your father's eyes. I read it all in three glances: one at him and two
at her. Decidedly, you've not your father's eyes."

"Nor his love of many words. So that's the son of my mother, of the
woman who failed to adore you after a brief but heroic effort?"

"Likewise, I dare say, the lover of a woman who will henceforth fail to
appraise you at anything like your extraordinary worth. Such blind
things they are, eh, my boy? She regards the two of you superficially,
_bien entendu_, and hence to your prejudice. There's a likeness between
you, the same cast of face, even a likeness of voice, and your noses are
identical--the nose of that woman--but the differences are all in his
favor. You have grace of a drawing-room sort, a certain boudoir polish
of manner, but his face is fresher, kinder, quicker of sympathy, more