de!"

He was obliged to look around. There was something about Fay that was at
once mild and hostile, truculent and apologetic. He spoke respectfully,
and yet with a kind of anger in the gleam of his starry eyes.

"Mr. Claude, I wish you wouldn't hang round my place any more. It don't
do any one any good." Claude was weighing the advantages of avowing
himself plainly on the spot, when Fay went on, "One experience of that
kind has been about enough--in _one_ year."

Claude's heart seemed to stop beating. "One experience of what kind?"

"You're all Mastermans together," Fay declared, bitterly. "I don't trust
any of you. You're both your father's sons."

"By God! I've got at it!" Claude cried to himself. Aloud he said, with
no display of emotion. "I don't understand you. I don't know what you
mean."

Fay merely repeated, hoarsely, "I don't want either of you coming any
more."

Claude took a tone he considered crafty. "Oh, come now, Mr. Fay. Even if
you don't want me, I shouldn't think you'd object to my brother Thor."

"Your brother Thor! You've a nice brother Thor!"

"Why, what's he done?"

"Ask my little girl. No, you needn't ask her. She wouldn't tell you. She
won't tell me. All I know is what I've seen."

If it hadn't been for the decencies and the people standing by, Claude
could have sprung on the old man and clutched his throat. All he could
do, however, was to say, peacefully, "And what _have_ you seen?"

Fay looked around to assure himself that no one was within earshot. The
car was bearing down on them with a crashing buzz, so that he was
obliged to speak rapidly. "I've seen him creep into my hothouse where my
little girl was at work, under cover of the night, and I've seen him
steal away. And when I've looked in after he was gone she was crying fit
to kill herself."

"What made you wait till he went away?" Claude asked, fiercely. "Why
didn't you go in after him and see what they were up to?"

The old man's face expressed the helplessness of the average American
parent in conflict with a child. "Oh, she wouldn't let me. She won't
have none of my interference. She says she knows what she's about. But I
don't know what _you're_ about, Mr. Claude; and so I'm beggin' you to
keep away. No good'll come of your actions. I don't trust any Masterman
that lives."

The car had stopped and emptied itself. The people were getting in. Fay
climbed the high steps laboriously, dropping a five-cent piece into a