"Stand aside! I'm--going to kill him--now."

But Gordon made no movement.

"No," he said, with a stony calmness.

It was a painful moment. It was a moment full of threat and intense crisis. One false move on Gordon's part, and the maddened father's fury would be turned on him.

The younger man forced a smile to his eyes.

"You once said I could scrap, Mr. Mallinsbee. I promise you I scrapped as I never did before. That man hasn't one whole feature in his face, and if the hangman's rope had been drawn tight around his neck it couldn't have done very much more damage than my fingers did. I tell you he's has his med'cine good and plenty. There's no need for more--that way. But we're going to hurt him. We're going to hurt him more by outing him from this deal of ours than ever by killing him.

We're going to stand at nothing now to--'out' him. Let's get our minds fixed that way. If one plan don't succeed--another must."

Standing there eye to eye Gordon won his way. He saw with satisfaction the fire in the old man's eyes slowly die down. Then he watched him reluctantly return to his chair.

It was not until the rancher had struck a match and relit his cigar that Gordon ventured to return to his desk.

"You're right, boy," Mallinsbee said at last. "You're right--and you've done right. If the whole scheme busts we--can't help it.

But--but we'll out that--cur."

The hall porter at the Carbhoy Building was perturbed. He was more than perturbed. He was ruffled out of his blatant superiority and dignity, and reduced to a condition when he could not state, with any degree of accuracy, whether the Statue of Liberty was a symbol of Freedom or a mere piece of cheap decoration for New York Harbor.

The precincts of the beautiful colored marble entrance hall over which he presided had been invaded, against all rules, by a woman who obviously had no business there. Moreover, he had been powerless to stay the invasion. Also he had been forced to submit out of a sheer sense of politeness to the sex, a politeness it was not his habit to display even towards his wife. Furthermore, like the veriest underling, instead of the autocrat he really was, he had been ordered--_ordered_--to announce the lady's arrival to Mr. James Carbhoy, and forthwith conduct her to that holy of holies, which no other female, except the cleaner, had ever been permitted to enter. It was Mrs. James Carbhoy who had caused the deplorable upheaval.

But Mrs. James Carbhoy was in no mood to parley with any hall porter, however gorgeous his livery. She was in no mood to parley even with her husband. She was disturbed out of her customary condition of passive acquiescence. She was heartbroken, too, and ready to weep against any manly chest with which her head came into contact. It is doubtful, even, if a Fifth Avenue policeman's chest would have been safe from her attentions in that direction. And surely distress must certainly be overwhelming that would not shrink from such support.

James Carbhoy detected the signs the moment his door was opened, and his wife tripped over the fringe of the splendid Turkey carpet and precipitated herself into the great morocco arm-chair nearest to her, waving a bunch of letter-paper violently in his direction.

"I've been to the Inquiry Bureau, and had a man detailed right away to go and find the boy," she burst out at once. Then all her mother's anxiety merged into an attack upon the man who silently rose from his desk and closed the door she had left open. "I don't know what to say to you, James," she went on. "I can't just think why I'm sitting right here in the presence of such a monster. Here you've driven our boy from the house. Maybe you've driven him to his death, or even worse, and I can't even get you to make an attempt to discover if he's alive or--or dead. This letter came this morning," she went on, holding the pages aloft, lest he should escape their reproach. "And if he hasn't gone and married some hussy there, out in some uncivilized region, I don't know a thing. S'pose he's married a half-breed or--or a squaw,"

she cried, her eyes rolling in horror at the bare idea. "It--it'll be your fault--your doing. You're just a cruel monster, and if it wasn't for our Gracie's sake I'd--I'd get a divorce. You--you ought to be ashamed, James Carbhoy. You ought--ought to be in--in prison, instead of sitting there grinning like some fool image."

The millionaire leaned back in his chair wearily.

"Oh, read the letter, Mary. You make me tired."

"Tired? Letter, you call it," cried the excited woman. "I tell you it's--it's a lot of gibberish that no sane son of ours ever wrote. Oh!

you're as bad as those men at the bureau. I made them read it, and--and they said he was a--bright boy. Bright, indeed! You listen to this and you can judge for yourself--if you've any sense at all."

"DEAREST MUM:

"I haven't written you in weeks, which should tell you that I am quite up to the average in my sense of filial duty. It should also tell you that I _hope_ I am prospering both in health and in worldly matters. I say 'hope' because nothing much seems certain in this world except the perfidy of human nature. It has been said that disappointment is responsible for all the hope in the world, but I'd like to say right here that that's just a sort of weak play on words which don't do justice to the meanest intelligence. I am full of hope and haven't yet been disappointed. Not even in my conviction that human nature has some good points, but bad points predominate, which makes you feel you'd, generally speaking, like to kick it plenty.

"While I'm on the subject of human nature it would be wrong not to discriminate between male and female human nature. Male can be dismissed under one plain heading: 'Self'--a heading which embraces every unpleasant feature in life, from extreme moral rectitude, with its various branches of self-complacency, down to chewing tobacco, to me a symbol of all that is criminally filthy in life. Female human nature comes under a similar heading, only, in a woman's case, 'Self'

is a combination of the two personalities, male and female. You see, 'Self,' in female human nature, is not a complete proposition in itself. Before it becomes complete there must be a man in the case, even if he be a disgrace to his sex. I will explain. You couldn't entertain any feeling or purpose without the old Dad coming into your focus. But with man it's different. The only reason a woman comes into his life at all is so that he can kick her out of it if she don't do just as he says and wants. I guess this sounds better to me writing from here than maybe it will to you in your parlor in New York. But it's easier to say things when you feel yourself shorn of the artificialities of life.

"This is merely preliminary, leading up to two pieces of news I have to hand to you. The first is, I have discovered that woman is the greatest proposition inspired by a creative Providence for the delight of man, but in business, unless specially trained, she's liable to fall even below the surface scum which includes the lesser grade of biped called 'man.' The second is that man, generally, is a pretty disgusting brute, and I allow he deserves all he gets in life, even to lynching. Understand I am speaking generally, as a looker-on, whose eyes are no longer blinded by the glamour of wealth in a big city and the comforts of a luxurious home.

"I feel I've got to say right here that to me, apart from the foregoing observations, woman is just the most wonderful thing in all this wonderful world. Her perfections and graces are just sublime; her understanding of man is so sympathetic that it don't seem to me she'd need more than two guesses to locate how many dollars he'd got in his pocket or the quality of the brain oozing out under his hat.

"I guess her eyes are just the dandiest things ever. Furthermore, when they happen to be hazel, they got a knack of boring holes right through you, and chasing around and finding the smallest spark of decency that may happen to be lying hidden in the general muck of a man's moral makeup. They do more than that. I'd say there never was a man in this world who, under such circumstances, happens to become aware of some such spark, but wants to start right in and fan it into a big bonfire to burn up the refuse under which it's been so long secreted. That's how he's bound to feel--anyway, at first.

"A woman's just every sort of thing a man needs around him. It don't seem a matter for worry if the sun-spots became a complete rash and its old light went out altogether. That feller would still see those wonderful eyes shining out of the darkness, giving him all the light he needed in which to play foolish and think himself all sorts of a man.

"Guess when he'd worked overtime that way and sleep set him dreaming he'd make pictures he couldn't paint in a year. There'd be every sort of peaceful delight in 'em. There'd be lambs, and children without clothes, and birds and flowers. And the lambs would bleat, and the children sing, and the birds flutter, and the flowers smell, and all the world would be full of joy. Then he'd wake up. Maybe it would be different then. You see, a man awake figures his woman needs to look like the statue of Venus, be bursting with the virtues of a first-class saint, and possess the economical inspiration of a Chinee cook.

"In pursuance of these discoveries of mine I feel that maybe I've got a wrong focus of our Gracie. Maybe when she gets sense, and sort of finds herself floating around in the divine beauties of womanhood, some escaped crank may chase along and figure she possesses some of the wonderful charms I've been talking about. Personally I wish our Gracie well, and am hoping for the best. Still, I feel whatever trouble she has getting a husband I don't guess it'll end there--the trouble, I mean.

"To come to my second discovery, it has afforded me some pleasant moments, as well as considerable disgust and anger. It may seem difficult to associate these emotions without confusion. But were you to fully understand the situation you would realize that they could be associated in one harmonious whole. With anger coming first, you find yourself in a frenzied state of elation, capable of achieving anything, from murder down to robbing the dead. It is a splendid feeling, and saves one from the rust of good-natured ineptitude. Then come the pleasant moments, which may find themselves in extreme exertion and the general exercise of muscles, and even, in some cases--brains. Disgust is the necessary mental attitude under reaction. This is how my discovery affected me. But I fancy the object through which I made my second discovery was probably affected otherwise. I can't just say offhand. Maybe I'll learn later, and be able to tell you.

"There is not a day passes but what I make discoveries of a more or less interesting nature. For instance, I've learned that there's nothing like three people hating one person to make for a bond of friendship between them. I'd say it's far more binding than marriage vows at the altar. This comes under the heading of 'more' interesting.

Under the 'less' comes such things as--the only time that impulsive action justifies itself is when you're sure of winning out. I have given myself two examples of impulsive action only to-day. The one in which I have won out seems to have ruined the chances of the other.

This is a confusion that doesn't seem to justify anything. Still, a philosopher might be able to disentangle it.

"I should be glad if you would give the old Dad my best love, and tell him that the figures representing one hundred thousand dollars grow in size with the advancing weeks. Nor can I tell how big they will appear by the end of six months. If they grow in my view at the present rate, by the end of six months it seems to me I'll need to walk around looking through the wrong end of a telescope so as to get a place for my feet anywhere on this continent. However, as 'disappointment' has not yet appeared to create 'hope,' it is obvious that 'conviction'

remains.

"I regret that time does not permit me to write more, so I will close.

Any further news I have to give you I will embody in another letter.

"Your loving son, "GORDON.

"P.S.--I have been thinking a great deal about Gracie lately, she being of the female sex. Of course, I could not compare her with a real woman, but I feel, with a little judicious broadening of her mind, say by travel or setting her out to earn her living, she might develop in the right direction. It is a thought worth pondering. Such a process might even have good results.

"G."

Mrs. James Carbhoy's angry and disgusted eyes were raised from her reading to confront her husband's amused smile.

"Well?" she demanded. "Is it sunstroke, or--or----?"

"That inquiry agent was a smart feller," the millionaire interrupted.

"Gordon surely is a--bright boy."

Mrs. Carbhoy's indignation leaped. And with its leap came another.

She fairly bounced out of the chair she had occupied and hurled herself at the mahogany door of the office.

"James Carbhoy, I shall see to this matter myself. I always knew you were merely a money machine. Now I know you have neither heart nor sense."

She flung open the door. Again she tripped over the fringe of the carpet, and, with a smothered ejaculation, flew headlong in the direction of the hall porter's stately presence.

CHAPTER XV

IN COUNCIL

There come days in a man's life which are not easily forgotten. Some poignant incident indelibly fixes them upon memory, and they become landmarks in his career. The next day became one of such in Gordon's life.