The judge rose and walked slowly the length of the room with his hands behind him and his head bowed. When he looked up again the paternal anxiety in his face had given place to judicial severity. “Yes, I see two things: One is, that you have a much worse opinion of my son than the facts, bad as they are, justify; and the other is, that you seem to have a--an unenviable familiarity with the methods you have been describing.” Brant saw his error when it was too late, and tried to retrieve it. “Don’t mistake me, Judge Langford. In such a case as I have been describing an inexperienced boy might well be an innocent accomplice--indeed, he would have to be to be of any use to his principal. And as to my knowledge, one learns much in the rough school of the frontier.” The judge’s hand was on the doorknob. “I can believe that; pardon me if I spoke hastily,” he said. “To be very frank with you, I am in deep trouble about William. If what you tell me about this man Harding be true, the boy is ruined.” “Not necessarily,” Brant amended. “Harding has left the city; and if you can keep your son from forming another such intimacy----” “How do you know Harding is gone?” interrupted the father. “He went at my suggestion.” “And was it also at your suggestion that the newspapers omitted my son’s name in reporting a certain wholesale arrest made by the police night before last?” “It was.” The judge smiled and shook his head. “You seem to be all-powerful, Mr. Brant, but I dislike mysteries--even beneficent mysteries. In this matter, however, I am your debtor; let me know when I may square the account.” And before Brant could add another word in explanation or extenuation he was gone. CHAPTER XI AND THE SHAFT TO THE MARK NOT until he had passed the judge’s questions and his own answers twice or thrice in mental review did Brant realize how completely he had succeeded in raising doubts as to his own obviousness where he fain would have allayed them. Then he grew angry, at his own inaptness in particular, and at an unsympathetic world in general. In its turn the fit of wrath was supplanted by a fever of impatience, and this glowed fitfully through the interminable afternoon which separated him from a possible visit to Hollywood. Having done a good deed, he had a very human hunger for appreciation-- appreciation untinctured by suspicion or innuendo, and Dorothy, at least, would not withhold it. So he believed, and, when evening came, lost no time in presenting himself at the door of the comfortable mansion in Altamont Terrace.