had merely shrugged her gaunt shoulders at him. "You think you can
bully everybody and make them crawl to you,--but there's no good your
trying it on with me," she had told him, and he had pushed his way out
of the shop almost stamping his feet. It was clear to him at that moment
that he would never darken her door again.

Yet now, on this afternoon of the tenth, as he lounged with a cigar and
a City paper in his apartment at the hotel after luncheon, wondering
whether it were too hot to issue forth for a walk to the Park, the
irrelevant idea of going round to see his sister kept coming into his
mind. He seated himself and fastened his attention upon the paper,--but
off it slipped again to the old book-shop, and to that curious,
cross-grained figure, its mistress. He abandoned himself to thinking
about her--and discovered that a certain unique quality in her
challenged his admiration. She was the only absolutely disinterested
person he knew--the only creature in the world, apparently, who did not
desire to make something out of him. She was not at all well-off,--was
indeed rather poor than otherwise,--and here was her only brother a
millionaire, and in her dumb way she had a sisterly affection for him,
and yet she could not be argued or cajoled into touching a penny of his
money. Surely there could be no other woman like her.

Thorpe realized that it was a distinction to have such a sister,--and
behind this thought rose obscurely the suggestion that there must be
wonderful blood in a race which had produced such a daughter. And for
that matter, such a son too! He lifted his head, and looked abstractedly
before him, as if he were gazing at some apotheosis of himself in a
mirror.

He beheld all at once something concrete and personal, obtruded into the
heart of his reverie, the sight of which dimly astounded him. For the
moment, with opened lips he stared at it,--then slowly brought himself
to comprehend what had happened. An old man had by some oversight of
the hotel servants been allowed to enter the room unannounced. He had
wandered in noiselessly, and had moved in a purblind fashion to the
centre of the apartment. The vagueness of the expression on his face and
of his movements hinted at a vacant mind or too much drink,--but Thorpe
gave no thought to either hypothesis. The face itself--no--yes--it was
the face of old Tavender.

"In the name of God! What are you doing here?" Thorpe gasped at this
extraordinary app