After talking with the New York client whose local interests I represented I sat thinking over the conversation with Perry. Considering Maude's intimacy with and affection for the Blackwoods, the affair was awkward, opening up many uncomfortable possibilities; and it was the prospect of discomfort that bothered me rather than regret for the probable loss of Perry's friendship. I still believed myself to have an affection for him: undoubtedly this was a sentimental remnant.... That evening after dinner Tom came in alone, and I suspected that Perry had sent him. He was fidgety, ill at ease, and presently asked if I could see him a moment in my study. Maude's glance followed us. "Say, Hugh, this is pretty stiff," he blurted out characteristically, when the door was closed. "I suppose you mean the Riverside Franchise," I said. He looked up at me, miserably, from the chair into which he had sunk, his hands in his pockets. "You'll forgive me for talking about it, won't you? You used to lecture me once in a while at Cambridge, you know." "That's all right--go ahead," I replied, trying to speak amiably. "You know I've always admired you, Hugh,--I never had your ability," he began painfully, "you've gone ahead pretty fast,--the truth is that Perry and I have been worried about you for some time. We've tried not to be too serious in showing it, but we've felt that these modern business methods were getting into your system without your realizing it. There are some things a man's friends can tell him, and it's their duty to tell him. Good God, haven't you got enough, Hugh,--enough success and enough money, without going into a thing like this Riverside scheme?" I was intensely annoyed, if not angry; and I hesitated a moment to calm myself. "Tom, you don't understand my position," I said. "I'm willing to discuss it with you, now that you've opened up the subject. Perry's been talking to you, I can see that. I think Perry's got queer ideas,--to be plain with you, and they're getting queerer."