whole, but they need not expect him to show
any great keenness in the chase for a few more thousands that would only
rank him among those for whom the war had not done so badly. Meantime,
for his father's sake, who, thank God, had given his best, his heart's
best and the best of his brain and of his splendid business genius
to his country, he would carry on, with no other reward than that of
service rendered.

CHAPTER III

THE HEATHEN QUEST

They stood together by the open fire in the study, Jack and his father,
alike in many ways yet producing effects very different. The younger man
had the physical makeup of the older, though of a slighter mould.
They had the same high, proud look of conscious strength, of cool
fearlessness that nothing could fluster. But the soul that looked out of
the grey eyes of the son was quite another from that which looked out of
the deep blue eyes of the father--yet, after all, the difference may not
have been in essence but only that the older man's soul had learned in
life's experience to look out only through a veil.

The soul of the youth was eager, adventurous, still believing, yet
with a certain questioning and a touch of weariness, a result of the
aftermath of peace following three years of war. There was still,
however, the out-looking for far horizons, the outreaching imagination,
the Heaven given expectation of the Infinite. In the older man's eye
dwelt chiefly reserve. The veil was always there except when he found it
wise and useful to draw it aside. If ever the inner light flamed
forth it was when the man so chose. Self-mastery, shrewdness, power,
knowledge, lay in the dark blue eyes, and all at the soul's command.

But to-night as the father's eyes rested upon his son who stood gazing
into and through the blazing fire there were to be seen only pride and
wistful love. But as the son turned his eyes toward his father the veil
fell and the eyes that answered were quiet, shrewd, keen and chiefly
kind.

The talk had passed beyond the commonplace of the day's doings. They
were among the big things, the fateful thing--Life and Its Worth, Work
and Its Wages, Creative Industry and Its Product, Capital and Its Price,
Man and His Rights.

They were frank with each other. The war had done that for them. For
ever since the night when his eighteen-year-old boy had walked into his
den and said, "Father, I am eighteen," and stood looking into his eyes
and waiting for the word th