short for the historic perspective did not make much
difference. American decorative art is _capable de tout_, it absorbs
all periods. Of each period Mr. Weightman wished to have something of
the best. He understood its value, present as a certificate, and
prospective as an investment.

It was only in the architecture of his town house that he remained
conservative, immovable, one might almost say Early-Victorian-Christian.
His country house at Dulwich-on-the-Sound was a palace of the Italian
Renaissance. But in town he adhered to an architecture which had moral
associations, the Nineteenth-Century-Brownstone epoch. It was a symbol of
his social position, his religious doctrine, and even, in a way, of his
business creed.

"A man of fixed principles," he would say, "should express them in the
looks of his house. New York changes its domestic architecture too
rapidly. It is like divorce. It is not dignified. I don't like it.
Extravagance and fickleness are advertised in most of these new
houses. I wish to be known for different qualities. Dignity and
prudence are the things that people trust. Every one knows that I can
afford to live in the house that suits me. It is a guarantee to the
public. It inspires confidence. It helps my influence. There is a text
in the Bible about 'a house that hath foundations.' That is the proper
kind of a mansion for a solid man."

Harold Weightman had often listened to his father discoursing in this
fashion on the fundamental principles of life, and always with a
divided mind. He admired immensely his father's talents and the
single-minded energy with which he improved them. But in the paternal
philosophy there was something that disquieted and oppressed the young
man, and made him gasp inwardly for fresh air and free action.

At times, during his college course and his years at the law school,
he had yielded to this impulse and broken away--now toward
extravagance and dissipation, and then, when the reaction came,
toward a romantic devotion to work among the poor. He had felt his
father's disapproval for both of these forms of imprudence; but it was
never expressed in a harsh or violent way, always with a certain
tolerant patience, such as one might show for the mistakes and
vagaries of the very young. John Weightman was not hasty, impulsive,
inconsiderate, even toward his own children. With them, as with the
rest of the world, he felt that he had a reputation to maintain, a
theory to