n, his own son, had a
personal distinction that he himself could never compass. Edwin talked
more correctly than his father. He thought differently from his father.
He had an original grace. In the essence of his being he was superior
to both his father and his sisters. Sometimes when his father saw him
walking along the street, or coming into a room, or uttering some simple
phrase, or shrugging his shoulders, Darius was aware of a faint thrill.
Pride? Perhaps; but he would never have admitted it. An agreeable
perplexity rather--a state of being puzzled how he, so common, had
begotten a creature so subtly aristocratic ... aristocratic was the
word. And Edwin seemed so young, fragile, innocent, and defenceless!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOUR.

Darius advanced into the attic.

"What about that matter of Enoch Peake's?" he asked, hoping and fearing,
really anxious for his son. He defended himself against probable
disappointment by preparing to lapse into savage paternal pessimism and
disgust at the futility of an offspring nursed in luxury.

"Oh! It's all right," said Edwin eagerly. "Mr Peake sent word he
couldn't come, and he wanted you to go across to the Dragon this
evening. So I went instead." It sounded dashingly capable.

He finished the recital, and added that of course Big James had not been
able to proceed with the job.

"And where's the proof?" demanded Darius. His relief expressed itself
in a superficial surliness; but Edwin was not deceived. As his father
gazed mechanically at the proof that Edwin produced hurriedly from his
pocket, he added with a negligent air--

"There was a free-and-easy on at the Dragon, father."

"Was there?" muttered Darius.

Edwin saw that whatever danger had existed was now over.

"And I suppose," said Darius, with assumed grimness, "if I hadn't
happened to ha' seen a light from th' bottom o' th' attic stairs I
should never have known aught about all this here?" He indicated the
cleansed attic, the table, the lamp, and the apparatus of art.

"Oh yes, you would, father!" Edwin reassured him.

Darius came nearer. They were close together, Edwin twisted on the
cane-chair, and his father almost over him. The lamp smelt, and gave
off a stuffy warmth; the open window, through which came a wandering
air, was a black oblong; the triangular side walls of the dormer shut
them intimately in; the house slept.

"Wha