so-called democracy,
he'd find people living for one another, and they were just looking out
for number one like every one else. Your Uncle Sim takes after him. Died
of a broken heart, I believe, because he didn't find the world made over
new. But you see the sort of well-born, high-minded stock you sprang
from."

Thor lifted his big frame to an erect position, throwing back his head.
"I don't care a fig for what I sprang from, father. I don't even care
much for what I am. It strikes me as far more important to see that our
old friends and neighbors--who are just as good as we are--don't have to
go under when we can keep them up."

"Yes, when we can," Thor's father said, with unperturbed gentleness;
"but very often we can't. In a world where every one's swimming for his
own dear life, those who can't swim have got to drown."

"But every one is not swimming for his own dear life. Most of us are
safe on shore. You and I are, for example. And when we are, it seems to
me the least we can do is to fling a life-preserver to the poor chaps
who are throwing up their hands and sinking."

Mrs. Masterman rallied her stepson indulgently. "Oh, Thor, how
ridiculous you are! How you talk!"

Claude patted his mother's hand. He was still trying to turn attention
from bearing too directly on the Fays. "Don't listen to him, mumphy.
Beastly socialist, that's what he is. Divide up all the money in the
world so that everybody'll have thirty cents, and then tell 'em to go
ahead and live regardless. That'd be his way of doing things."

But the father was more just. "Oh no, it wouldn't. Thor's no fool! Has
some excellent ideas. A little exaggerated, perhaps, but that'll cure
itself in time. Fault of youth. Good fault, too." He turned
affectionately to his elder son, "Rather see you that way, my boy, than
with an empty head."

Thor fell silent, from a sense of the futility of talking.

CHAPTER VI

At the moment when Claude was excusing himself further, begging to be
allowed to run away so as not to keep Billy Cheever waiting, Rosie Fay
was noticing with relief that her mother was asleep at last. Thor's
sedative had taken effect in what the girl considered the nick of time.
Having smoothed the pillow, adjusted the patchwork quilt, and placed the
small kerosene hand-lamp on a chair at the foot of the bed, so as to
shade it from the sleeper's eyes, she slipped down-stairs.

She wore a long, rough coat. Over her hair she had flun