ld him. The man was telling him these things with visible reluctance,
with a simple dignity that arrested him, even while he felt that he
should not listen.

"She used to taunt me with that," he went on, "taunt me with striking
Donald MacRae. For years after we were married she used to do that. Long
after--and that wasn't so long--she had ceased to care if such a man as
your father existed. That was only an episode to her, of which she was
snobbishly ashamed in time. But she often reminded me that I had struck
him like a hardened butcher, because she knew she could hurt me with
that. So that I used to wish to God I had never followed her out into
the Gulf.

"For thirty years I've lived and worked and never known any real
satisfaction in living--or happiness. I've played the game, played it
hard. I've been hard, they say. Probably I have. I didn't care. A man
had to walk on others or be walked on himself. I made money. Money--I
poured it into her hands, like pouring sand in a rat-hole. She lived for
herself, her whims, her codfish-aristocracy standards, spending my money
like water to make a showing, giving me nothing in return, nothing but
whining and recrimination if I crossed her ever so little. She made a
lap dog of her son the first twenty-five years of his life. She would
have made Betty a cheap imitation of herself. But she couldn't do that."

He stopped a moment and shook his head gently.

"No," he resumed, "she couldn't do that. There's iron in that girl.
She's all Gower. I think I should have thrown up my hands long ago only
for Betty's sake."

MacRae shifted uneasily.

"You see," Gower continued, "my life has been a failure, too. When
Donald MacRae and I clashed, I prevailed. I got what I wanted. But it
was only a shadow. There was no substance. It didn't do me any good. I
have made money, barrels of it, and that has not done me any good. I've
been successful at everything I undertook--except lately--but succeeding
as the world reckons success hasn't made me happy. In my personal life
I've been a damned failure. I've always been aware of that. And if I
have held a feeling toward Donald MacRae these thirty-odd years, it was
a feeling of envy. I would have traded places with him and been the
gainer. I would have liked to tell him so. But I couldn't. He was a dour
Scotchman and I suppose he hated me, although he kept it to himself. I
suppose he loved Bessie. I know I did. Perhaps he cherished hatred of me