On leaving Lois and returning homeward, Thor met his brother at the entrance to the avenue. They had not spoken since the preceding night. On purpose to avoid a meeting, Claude had breakfasted early and escaped to town before Thor had come down-stairs. In the glimpse Thor had caught of his younger brother as the latter left the house he saw that he looked white and worried.

He looked white and worried still under the glare of street electricity. As they walked up the driveway together Thor took the opportunity to put himself right in the matter that lay most urgently on his mind. "Lois and I are to be married on one of the last days of February," he said, with his best attempt to speak casually. "She wants to work it in before Lent, which begins on the first day of March. Have scruples about marrying in Lent in their church. Quiet affair. No one but the two families."

Claude asked the question as to which he felt most curiosity. "Going to tell father?"

"To-night. No use shilly-shallying about things of that sort. Father mayn't like it; but he can't kick."

Claude spoke moodily: "He can't kick in your case."

"We're grown men, Claude. We're the only judges of what's right for us. I don't mean any disrespect to father; but we've got to be free. Best way, as far as I see, is to be open and aboveboard and firm. Then everybody knows where you are."

Claude made no response till they reached the door-step, where he lingered. "Look here, Thor," he said then, "I've got to put this thing through in my own way, you know."

Thor didn't need to be told what this thing was. "That's all right, Claude. I've got nothing to do with it."

"You've got something to do with it when you put up the money. And what I feel," he added, complainingly, "is that my taking it makes me look as if I was bought."

"Oh, rot, Claude!" Thor made a great effort. "Hang it all! when a fellow's in—in love, and going to be married himself, you don't suppose he can ignore his own brother who's in the same sort of box, and can't be married for the sake of a few hundred dollars? That wouldn't be human."

It was not difficult for Claude to take this point of view, but he repeated, tenaciously, "I've got to do it in my own way."

"Good Lord! old chap, I don't care how you do it," Thor declared, airily, "so long as it's done. Just buck up and be a man, and you'll pull it off magnificently. It's the sort of thing you've got to pull off magnificently—or slump."

"That's what I think," Claude agreed, "and so I'm"—he hesitated before announcing so bold a program—"and so I'm going to take her abroad."

"Oh!" Thor gave a little gasp. He had not expected to have Rosie pass out of his ken. He had supposed that he should remain near her, watch over her, know what she was doing and what was being done to her. He was busy trying to readjust his mind while Claude stammered out suggestions for the payment of Rosie's proposed dowry. It was clear without his saying so that he hated doing it; but he did say so, adding that it made him feel as if he was bought.

Thor was irritated by the repetition. "Let's drop that, Claude, if you don't mind. Be satisfied once for all that if you and Rosie accept the money it will be as a favor to me. I'm so built that I can't be happy in my own marriage without knowing that you and—and she have the chance to be happy in yours. With all the money that's coming to me, and that I've never done any more to deserve than you have, what I'm setting aside will be a trifle. As to the payments, I'll do just as you say. The first quarter will be paid to Rosie on the day you're married—when there'll be a little check for you, for good luck. So go ahead and make your plans. Go abroad, if you want to. Dare say it's the best thing you can do."

To escape his brother's shamefaced thanks Thor passed into the porch. "I'm not going to tell any one about it till I'm ready," Claude warned as he followed.

Thor turned. "Of course you know that father's on to the whole business."

"The deuce he is!"

"Father told me. How did you suppose I knew anything about it?"

"So that's it! Been wondering all day who could have given me away. That's Uncle Sim's tricks. Knew the old fool had his eye—"

"It was bound to come out somehow, you know, in a little village like this. Natural enough that Uncle Sim should want to put father wise to a matter that concerns the whole family. I thought I'd tell you so that you can take your line."

"Take what line?"

"How do I know? That's up to you. The line that will best protect Rosie, I suppose. Remember that that's your first consideration now. I only want you to understand that you can't keep father in the dark. I should say it was more dignified, and perhaps better policy, not to try."

An hour later Mrs. Masterman was commenting at the dinner-table on the pleasing circumstance that invitations to Miss Elsie Darling's party had come for the entire family. There were cards not only for the two young men, but for the father and mother also. Since both the older and the younger members of society were included, it was clear that the function was to pass the limitations of a dance and become a ball.

Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Masterman was superior to this form of entertainment. It was the one above all others that reminded them that they belonged to society in the higher sense. They dined out with tolerable frequency; with tolerable frequency their friends dined with them. As for the afternoon teas to which they were bidden in the course of a season, Mrs. Masterman could scarcely keep count of them. But balls came only once or twice in a winter, and not always so often as that. A ball was a community event. It was an occasion on which to display the fact that the neighborhood could unite in a gathering more socially significant than the mere frolicking of boys and girls. Moreover, it was an opportunity for proving that the higher circles of the village stood on equal terms with those of the city, with the solidarity of true aristocracies all over the world.

On Mrs. Masterman's murmuring something to the effect that Claude would go to the ball, of course, the young man mumbled words that sounded like, "Not for mine." The mother understood the response to be a negative, and replied with a protest.

"Oh, but you must, Claudie dear. It'll be so nice for you to meet Elsie. She's a charming girl, they say, after her years abroad." She concluded, with a wrinkling of her pretty brow, "It seems to me you don't know many really nice girls."

She had been moved by no more than a mother's solicitude, but Claude kept his eyes on his plate. He knew that his father was probably looking at him, and that Thor was saying, "Now's your chance to speak up and declare that you know the nicest girl in the world." Poor Claude was sensible of the opportunity, and yet felt himself paralyzed with regard to making use of it. In reply he could only say, vaguely, that if he had to go he would have to go, and not long afterward Mrs. Masterman rose.

The sons followed their parents into the library, pausing to light their cigarettes on the way. By the time they had crossed the hall the head of the house had settled himself with the evening paper in his favorite arm-chair before the slumbering wood fire. Mrs. Masterman stooped over the long table strewn with periodicals, turning the pages of a new magazine. Thor advanced to a discreet distance behind his father's chair, where he paused and said, quietly:

"Father, I want to tell you and mother that I'm engaged to Lois Willoughby. We're to be married almost at once—toward the end of next month."

There was dead silence. As far as could be observed, Masterman continued to study his paper, while his wife still stooped over the pages of her magazine. It was long before the father said, with the seeming indifference meant to be more bitter than gall:

"That, I presume, is your answer to my move with regard to the father. Very well, Thor. You're your own master. I've nothing to say."

Before Thor could explain that it was only the carrying out of a long-planned intention, his stepmother looked up and spoke. "I have something to say, Thor dear. I hope you're going to be very happy. I'm sure you will be. She's a noble girl."

Her newly germinating vitality having asserted itself to this extent, she stood aghast till Thor strode up and kissed her, saying: "Thank you, mumphy. She is a noble girl—one of the best."

The example had its effect on Claude, who had stood hesitating in the doorway, and now came toward his father's chair, though timidly. "Father, I'm going to be married, too."

His mother uttered a smothered cry. Masterman turned sharply.

"Who? You?"

The implied scorn in the tone put Claude on his mettle. "Yes, father," he tried to say with dignity. It was in search of further support for this dignity that he added, in a manner that he tried to make formal, but which became only faltering, "To—to—to Miss Rosanna Fay."

Masterman shrugged his shoulders and returned to his newspaper. There were full three minutes in which each of the spectators waited for another word. "Have you nothing to say to me, father?" Claude pleaded, in a tone curiously piteous.

The father barely glanced around over his shoulder. "What do you expect me to say?—to call you a damn fool? The words would be wasted."

"I'm a grown man, father—" Claude began to protest.

"Are you? It's the first intimation I've had of it. But I'm willing to take your word. If so, you must assume a grown man's responsibilities—from now on."

Claude's throat was dry and husky. "What do you mean by—from now on?"

"I mean from the minute when you've irrevocably chosen between this woman and us. You haven't irrevocably chosen as yet. You've still time—to reconsider."

"But if I don't reconsider, father?—if I can't?"

"The choice is between her and—us."

He returned to his paper; but again his wife's nascent will to live asserted itself, to no one's astonishment more than to her own. "It's not between her and me, Claude," she cried, casting as she did so a frightened glance at the back of her husband's head. "I'm your mother. I shall stand by you, whoever fails." Her words terrified her so utterly that before she dared to cross the floor to her son she looked again beseechingly at the iron-gray top of her husband's head as it appeared above the back of the arm-chair. Nevertheless, she stole swiftly to her boy and put her hands on his shoulders. "I'm your mother, dear," she sobbed, tremblingly; "and if she's a good girl, and loves you, I'll—I'll accept her."

Masterman turned his newspaper inside out, as though pretending not to hear.

Thor waited till Claude and his mother, clinging to each other, had crept out of the room, before saying, "I'm responsible for this, father."

There was no change in the father's attitude. "So I supposed."

"The girl is a good girl, and I couldn't let Claude break her heart."

"You found it easier to break mine."

"I don't mean that, father—"

"Then I can only say that you're as successful in what you don't mean as in what you do."

"I don't understand."

"No, perhaps not. But it would be futile for me to try to explain to you. Good night."

Thor remained where he was. "It isn't futile for me to try to explain to you, father. I know Rosie Fay, and you don't. She's a beautiful girl, with that strong character which Claude needs to give him backbone. He is in love with her, and he's made her fall in love with him. It wouldn't be decent on his part or honorable on ours—"

The father interrupted wearily. "You'll spare me the sentimentalities. The facts are bad enough. When I want instructions in decency and honor I'll come to you and get them. In the mean time I've said—good night."

"But, father, we must talk about it—"

Masterman raised himself in his chair and turned. "Thor," he said, sternly, his words getting increased effect from his childlike lisp, "if you knew how painful your presence is to me—you'd go."

Thor flushed. There was nothing left for him but to turn. And yet he had not gone many steps beyond the library door before he heard his father fling the paper to the floor, uttering a low groan.

The young man stood still, shifting between two minds. Should he go away and leave his father to the mortifying sense that his sons were setting him at defiance? or should he return and insist on full explanations? He would have done the latter had it not been for the words, "If you knew how painful your presence is to me!" He still heard them. They cut him across the face—across the heart. He went on up-stairs.

As he passed the open door of Mrs. Masterman's room he heard Claude saying: "Oh, mother darling, if you knew her, you'd feel about her just as I do. When she's dressed up as a lady she'll put every other girl in the shade. You'll see she will. After she's had a year or two in Paris—"

Thor entered the room while the mother was crying out: "Paris! Why, Claudie dear, what are you talking about? How are you going to live?—let alone Paris!"

"That's all right, mother. Don't fret. I can get money. I'm not a fool. Look here," he added, in a confidential tone, winking at Thor over her shoulder, "I'll tell you something. It's a secret, mind you. Not a word to father! I'm all right for money now."

She could only repeat, in a tone of mystification, "All right for money now?"

Claude made an inarticulate sound of assent. "Got it all fixed."

"Oh, but how?"

"I said it was a secret." He winked at his brother again. "I shouldn't tell even you, only you've been such a spanking good mother to back me up that I want to ease your mind."

She threw an imploring look at her stepson, though she addressed her son. "Oh, Claude, you haven't done anything wrong, have you?—forged?—or embezzled?—or whatever it is they do in banks."

"No, mother; it's all on the square." Because of Thor's presence he added: "If it will make you any the more cheerful I'll tell you this, too. It's not going to be my money; it' be Rosie's. Strictly speaking, I sha'n't have anything to do with it. She'll have—about five thousand dollars a year! When it's all over—and we're married—you can put father wise to that; but not before, mind you."

"But, Claudie darling, I don't understand a bit. How can she have five thousand dollars a year, when they're as poor as poor? And she hasn't a relation who could possibly—"

He, too, threw a glance at Thor. "She may not have a relation, but she might have a—a friend. Now, mother, this is just between you and me. If you hadn't been such a spanking good mother I shouldn't have told you a word of it."

"Yes, but, Claude! Think! What sort of a friend could it possibly be who'd give a girl all that money? Why, it's ridiculous!"

"It isn't ridiculous. Is it, Thor? You leave it to me, mumphy."

"But it is ridiculous, Claudie dear. You'll see if it isn't. No man in the world would settle five thousand dollars a year on a girl like that—without a penny—unless he had a reason, and a very good reason, too. Would he, Thor?" she demanded of her stepson, whom she had not hitherto included. She continued to address him: "I don't care who he is or what he is. Don't you agree with me? Wouldn't anybody agree with me who had his senses?"

Thor's heart jumped. This was a view of his intentions that he had not foreseen. Fortunately he could disarm his stepmother by revealing himself as the god from the machine, for she would consider it no more than just that he should use part of his inheritance for Claude's benefit. He might have made the attempt there and then had not Claude done it for himself.

"Now you leave it to me, mumphy dear. I know exactly what I'm about. I can't explain. But I'll tell you this much more—it'll make your mind quite easy—that it's all on my account that Rosie's to have the money." He gave his brother another look. "If she didn't marry me she wouldn't get it. At least," he added, more doubtfully, "I don't think she would. See?"

Mrs. Masterman confessed that she didn't see—quite; but her tone made it clear that she was influenced by Claude's assurances, while Thor felt it prudent to go on his way up the second stairway.