mately, any great
change in his plans. It was obvious that James Prince was looking
forward to a year or two of harassing procedure in the courts, for old
Jehiel's estate was unlikely to smooth out with celerity; but Raymond
was clearly of no use at home, even as a mere source of sympathy. A
fortnight after his grandfather's funeral he was off.

The singing-class would have given him good-bye in a special session;
but his eyes were now on brighter matters and the vocalizing Gertrudes
and Adeles were dim. He got out of it. Besides, the affair might come to
involve something like ceremony; and he was always desirous of avoiding
(save in the arts) the ceremonial side of life. When he came back from
his first sojourn on the Continent he was a young man of mark, as things
went in our particular town and time; or, rather, he might have been
such, had he but chosen. The family fortunes were then merely at the
stage of worry and still far from that of impending disaster. Raymond
came back with money, position, and a certain aureole of personal
distinction--just the sort of young man who would be asked to act as
usher at a wedding. He _was_ asked repeatedly; but he never acted, and
his excuses and subterfuges for avoiding such a service almost became
one of the comedies of the day. He had no relish for seeing himself
walking ceremonially up a church aisle under the eyes of hundreds, and
I knew better than to ask him to walk up any aisle for me. He never did
the thing but once, and that was under the inescapable compulsion of his
fiancee--who, for her part, insisted on eyes and plenty of them. A man
may never cease to be astonished at the workings of feminine preferences
on such an occasion, but can hardly escape accommodating himself to
them. Gertrudes are Gertrudes.

But the wedding is years ahead, while the departure for Europe is
imminent. Raymond had a tepid, awkward parting with his mother, whose
headaches would not allow her to go to the train; and he shook hands
rather coldly and constrainedly with his father, who would have
welcomed, as I guess, some slight show of filial warmth, and he threw an
embarrassedly facetious word to me about the weight of his portmanteau,
and so was off. And it was years, rather than months, before he came
back.

PART III

I

While Raymond was taking his course abroad, Johnny McComas was shaping
his course at home. A colorless, unbiased statement--as it was meant to
be; one whic