before him. "If you want information, Thor, ask me."

"I don't want information, father; and I don't think Claude is fair in
saying I cross-questioned him. I only said that I thought he and I ought
to do what we could to get you to renew Fay's lease."

"Oh, did you? Then I can save you the trouble, because I'm not going
to."

The declaration was so definite that it left Thor with nothing to say.
"Poor old Fay has worked pretty hard, hasn't he?" he ventured at last.

"Possibly. So have I."

"But with the difference that you've been prosperous, and he hasn't."

Masterman laughed good-naturedly. "Which is the difference between me
and a good many other people. You don't blame me for that?"

"It's not a question of blaming any one, father. I only supposed that
among Americans it was the correct thing for the lucky ones to come to
the aid of the less fortunate."

"Take it that I'm doing that for Fay when I get him out of an impossible
situation."

Thor smiled ruefully. "When you get him out of the frying-pan into the
fire?"

"Well," Claude challenged, coming to his father's aid, "the fire's no
worse than the frying-pan, and may be a little better."

"I've seen the girl," Mrs. Masterman contributed to the discussion.
"She's been in the greenhouse when I've gone to buy flowers. I must say
she didn't strike me very favorably." The two brothers exchanged glances
without knowing why. "She seemed to me so much--so very much--above her
station."

"What _is_ her station?" Thor asked, bridling. "Her station's the same
as ours, isn't it?"

The father was amused. "The same as _what_?"

"Surely we're all much of a muchness. Most of us were farmers and
market-gardeners up to forty or fifty years ago. I've heard," he went
on, utilizing the information he had received that afternoon, "that the
Thorleys used to hire out to the Fays."

"Oh, the Thorleys!" Mrs. Masterman smiled.

"The Mastermans didn't," Archie said, gently. "You won't forget that, my
boy. Whatever you may be on any other side, you come from a line of
gentlemen on mine. Your grandfather Masterman was one of the best-known
old-school physicians in this part of the country. His father before him
was a Church of England clergyman in Derbyshire, who migrated to America
because he'd become a Unitarian. Sort of idealist. Lot of 'em in those
days. Time of Napoleon and Southey and Coleridge and all that. Thought
that because America was a so-called republic, or a