illoughby as soon as he had made a
start in practice and come into the money he was to get at thirty; but
he could see it was the sort of thing by which other men might be
affected, and came to a mental standstill there.

Driving on into the city, he went straight to his father's office in
Commonwealth Row. It was already after four o'clock, and except for two
young men sorting checks and putting away ledgers, the cagelike
divisions of the banking department were empty. One of the men was
whistling; the other was calling in a loud, gay voice, "Say, Cheever,
what about to-night?"--signs that the enforced decorum of the day was
past.

Claude was in the outer office reserved for customers. He wore his
overcoat, hat, and gloves. A stick hung over his left arm by its crooked
handle. The ticker was silent, but a portion of the tape fluttered
between his gloved fingers.

Though his back was toward the door, he recognized his half-brother's
step with that mixture of envy and irritation which Thor's presence
always stirred in him. He was not without fraternal affection,
especially when Thor was away; when he was at home it was difficult for
Claude not to resent the elder's superiority. Claude called it
superiority for want of a better word, though he meant no more than a
combination of advantages he himself would have enjoyed. He meant Thor's
prospective money, his good spirits, good temper, and good health.
Claude had not good health, which excused, in his judgment, his lack of
good spirits and good temper. Neither had Claude any money beyond the
fifteen hundred dollars a year he earned in his father's office. He was
in the habit of saying to himself, and in confidence to his friends,
that it was "damned hard luck" that he should be compelled to live on a
pittance like that, when Thor, within a few months, would come into a
good thirty thousand a year.

It was some consolation that Thor was what his brother called "an ugly
beast"--sallow and lantern-jawed, with a long, narrow head that looked
as if it had been sat on. The eyes were not bad; that had to be
admitted; they were as friendly as a welcoming light; but the mouth was
so big and aggressive that even the mustache Thor was trying to grow
couldn't subdue its boldness. As for the nose and chin, they
looked--according to Claude's account--as if they had been created soft,
and subjected to a system of grotesque elongation before hardening.
Claude could the more safely ma