Bonbright was in his own home again—in the house that had been his father's, and that was now his. He stood in the room that had been his since babyhood. He had not thought to stand there again, nor did he know that the room and the house were his own. He had come from the shops but a half hour before; had come from that room where his father lay across his desk, one arm outstretched, the other shielding his face. There had been no time to think then; no time to realize. … What thought had come to him was one of wonder that the death of his father could mean so little to him. Shock he felt, but not grief. He had not loved his father. Yet a father is a vital thing in a son's life. Bonbright felt this. He knew that the departing of a father should stand as one of the milestones of life, marking a great change. It marked no change for him. Everything would go on as it had gone—even on the material side. It was inevitable that he should remember his father's threat to disinherit him. Now the thing had come—and it made little difference, for Bonbright had laid out his life along lines of his own…. His father would be carried to the grave, would disappear from the scene—that was all.

He saw that the things were done which had to be done, and went home to his mother, dreading the meeting. He need not have dreaded it, for she met him with no signs of grief. If she felt grief she hid it well. She was calm, stately, grave—but her eyes were not red with weeping nor was her face drawn with woe. He wondered if his father meant as little to his father's wife as it did to his father's son. It seemed so. There had been no affectionate passage between Bonbright and his mother. She had not unbent to him. He had hardly expected her to, though he had been prepared to respond….

Now he was in his room with time to think—and there was strangely little to think of. He had covered the ground already. His father was dead. When Bonbright uttered that sentence he had covered the episode completely. That was it—it was an EPISODE.

A servant came to the door.

"Mr. Richmond wishes to speak with you on the phone, Mr. Bonbright," the man said, and Bonbright walked to the instrument. Richmond had been his father's counsel for many years.

"Bonbright?" asked Mr. Richmond.

"Yes."

"I have just had the news. I am shocked. It is a terrible thing."

"Yes," said Bonbright.

"I will come up at once—if you can see me. The death of a man like your father entails certain consequences which cannot be considered too soon. May I come?"

"If you think it is necessary," said Bonbright.

"It is necessary," said Mr. Richmond.

In twenty minutes Richmond was announced and Bonbright went to meet him in the library. Richmond extended his hand with the appropriate bearing for such an occasion. His handshake was a perfect thing, studied, rehearsed, just as all his life was studied and rehearsed. He had in stock a manner and a handshake and a demeanor which could be instantly taken off the shelf and used for any situation which might arise. Richmond was a ready man, an able man. On the whole, he was a good man, as men go, but cut and dried.

"Your father was a notable man," he declared. "He will be missed."

Bonbright bowed.

"There will be a great deal for you to look after," said the lawyer, "so I will be brief. The mass of detail can wait—until after—er—until you have more leisure."

"I think, Mr. Richmond, it is my mother you wish to see, not myself. I thought you would understand my position. I am surprised that you do not, since you have been so close to my father…. My father and I did not agree on matters which both of us considered vital. There were differences which could not be abridged. So I am here merely as his son, not as his successor in any way."

"I don't understand."

"My father," said Bonbright, with a trace of impatience, "disowned me, and—disinherited, I believe, is the word—disinherited me."

"Oh no! No!… Indeed no! You are laboring under a misapprehension. … You are mistaken. I am glad to be able to relieve your mind on that point. Nothing of the sort was done. I am in a position to know. … I will admit your father discussed such action, but the matter went no farther. Perhaps it was his intention to do as you say, but he put it off…. He seemed to have a prejudice against making a will. As a matter of fact, he died intestate…"

"You mean—"

"I mean that your father's wealth—and it was considerable, sir—will be disposed of according to the statutes of Descent and Distribution. In other words, having failed to dispose of his property by testament, the law directs its disposition. With the exception of certain dower rights the whole vests in yourself."

Here was something to think of. Here was a new and astounding set of circumstances to which he must adapt himself…. He experienced no leap of exultation. The news left him cold. Queerly, his thoughts in that moment were of Ruth and of her great plan.

"If she had waited…" he thought.

No, he was glad she had not waited. He did not want her that way…. It was not her he wanted, but her love. He thought bitterly that he would willingly exchange all that had become his for that one possession. He could have anything—everything—he wanted now but that….

"I am glad to be able to give you such news," said Mr. Richmond.

"I was thinking of something else," said Bonbright.

Richmond looked at the young man obliquely. He had heard that Bonbright was queer. This rumor seemed not without foundation. Richmond could not comprehend how a young man could think of anything else when he had just learned that he was several tunes a millionaire.

"Sit down," said Bonbright. "This, of course, makes a difference."

Richmond seated himself, and drew documents from his green bag. For half an hour he discussed the legal aspects of the situation and explained to Bonbright what steps must be taken at once.

"I think that is all that will be necessary to-day," he said, finally.

"Very well…. There is no reason why affairs may not go on for a couple of days as they are—as if father were alive?"

"No, I see no reason why they should not."

"Very well, then…. Will you see to it? The—the funeral will be on
Saturday. Monday I shall be in the office."

"I hope you will call upon me for any assistance or advice you find necessary…. Or for any service of whatsoever nature…. Good afternoon…. Will you convey my sympathy to Mrs. Foote?"

The rest of that day, and of the days that followed it, Bonbright was trying to find the answer to the question, What does this mean to me? and to its companion question, What shall I do with it?

One paper Richmond had left in Bonbright's hands, as Richmond's predecessors had left it in the hands of preceding Bonbright Footes. It was a copy of the will of the first Bonbright Foote, and the basic law, a sort of Salic law, a family pragmatic sanction for his descendants, through time and eternity. It laid upon his descendants the weight of his will with respect to the conduct of the business of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. Five generations had followed it faithfully, deviating only as new conditions made deviation necessary. It was all there, all set forth minutely. Bonbright could visualize that first of his line from the reading of it—and he could visualize his father. His father was the sort of man that will would create…. He considered himself. He was not off that piece….

His father had tried to press him in the family mold, and he remembered those unbearable days. Now, from his remote grave the first Bonbright Foote reached out with the same mold and laid his hands on the hope of the line…. Bonbright read the words many times. His was the choice to obey or to disobey, to remain an individual, distinct and separate from all other individuals since the world began, or to become the sixth reincarnation of Bonbright Foote I…. The day following his father's burial he chose, not rashly in haste, nor without studied reason. To others the decision might not have seemed momentous; to Bonbright it was epoch-marking. It did mark an epoch in the history of the Foote family. It was the Family's French Revolution. It was Martin Luther throwing his inkpot at the devil—and overturning the ages.

Bonbright's decision required physical expression. Most human decisions require physical expression to give them effect. He had a feeling as though six disembodied Bonbright Footes stood about in an agony of anxiety, watching to see what he would do as he took the emblematical paper in his hands. He tore it very slowly, tore it again and again into ribbons and into squares, and let them flutter into his wastebasket…. If others had been present to assert that they heard a groan he would not have denied it, for the ancestors were very real to him then… their presence was a definite fact.

"There…" he said. The king was dead. Long live the king!

It was after that he had his talk with his mother. Perhaps he was abrupt, but he dreaded that talk. Perhaps his diplomacy was faulty or lacking. Perhaps he made mistakes and failed to rise to the requirements of the conditions and of his relationship with her. He did his best.

"Mother," he said, "we must talk things over."

She sat silently, waiting for him to speak.

"Whatever you wish," he said, "I shall do… if I can."

"There is a qualification?" she said.

"Suppose you tell me what you want done," he said.

"I want you to come to your senses and realize your position," she said, coldly. "I want you to get rid of that woman and, after a decent interval, marry some suitable girl…."

"I was discussing your affairs, mother, not mine. We will not refer to my wife."

"All I want," she said, "is what I am entitled to as your father's widow."

"This house, of course," he said. "You will want to stay here. I want you to stay here."

"And you?"

"I prefer to live as I am."

"You mean you do not care to come back here?"

"Yes."

"You must. I insist upon it. You have caused scandal enough now….
People would talk."

"Mother, we might as well understand each other at once. I am not Bonbright Foote VII. Let that be clear. I am Bonbright Foote. I am myself, an individual. The old way of doing things is gone…. Perhaps you have heard of the family law—the first Bonbright's will. … I have just torn it up."

She compressed her lips and regarded him with hostility. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

"I suppose I must make the best of it. I realize I am powerless." She realized it fully in that moment; realized that her son was a man, a man with force and a will, and that it would be hopeless to try to bring him to submit to her influence. "There is nothing for us to discuss. I shall ask for what I need…."

"Very well," he said, not coldly, not sharply, but sorrowfully. There was no need to try to approach nearer to his mother. She did not desire it. In her the motherly instinct did not appear. She had never given birth to a son; what she had done was to provide her husband with an heir, and, that being done, she was finished with the affair. …

He went from his mother to his own room, where he sat down at his desk and wrote a brief letter to his wife. It was not so difficult to compose as the other one had been, but it was equally succinct, equally barren of emotion. Yet he was not barren of emotion as he wrote it.

MY DEAR RUTH [he said],-My father is dead. This makes a very material change in my financial condition, and the weekly sum I have been sending you becomes inadequate. Hereafter a suitable check will be mailed you each week until the year expires. At that time I shall make a settlement upon you which will be perfectly satisfactory. In the meantime, should you require anything, you have but to notify me, or, if you prefer, notify Mr. Manley Richmond, who will attend to it immediately.

This letter he mailed himself…. Not many days later it was returned to him with "Not Found" stamped upon it in red ink. Bonbright fancied there must be some error, so he sent it again by messenger. The boy returned to report that the apartment was vacant and that no one could furnish the present address of the lady who had occupied it. Bonbright sent to Ruth's mother, who could only inform him that Ruth had gone away, she did not know where, and such goings-on she never saw, and why she should be asked to bear more than she had borne was a mystery..—

There was but one conclusion for Bonbright. Ruth had been too impatient to wait for the year to expire and had gone away with Dulac….

Hilda could have corrected that belief, but he did not see Hilda, had not seen her, for his new duties and new problems and responsibilities occupied him many more hours a day than any labor union or legislature would have permitted an employee to be required to work. His hours of labor did not stop with the eighth nor with the tenth…. There were days when they began with daylight and continued almost to daylight again.

Ruth had gone with Dulac…. She was hidden away. Not even Hilda Lightener knew where she was, but Hilda knew why she had gone…. There is an instinct in most animals and some humans which compels them to hide away when they suffer wounds. Hilda knew Ruth had crept away because she had suffered the hardest to bear of all wounds—and crushing of hope….

She had gone the morning after Bonbright's father died, leaving no word but that she was going, and she had not gone far. It is simple to lose oneself in a city. One may merely move to the next ward and be lost to one's friends. Only chance will cause a meeting, and Ruth was determined to guard against that chance.

She found a cheap, decent boarding house, among laboring people; she found a new position… that was all. She had to live; to continue was required of her, but it must be among strangers. She could face existence where there were no pitying eyes; where there was none to remind her of her husband…. She hid away with her love, and coddled it and held it up for herself to see. She lived for it. It was her life…. Even at her darkest moment she was glad she loved. She devoted herself wholly to that love which had been discovered just too late—which was not the wise nor the healthful thing to do, as any physician could have informed her.