"I have never held the position of father to young Morley. I've helped him to find himself as I have many another young man. He has no reason to dupe me. We understand each other fairly well; better, I think than most old men and young ones." "Exactly! That is what you think." "It is." "Very well, then listen. Remember I would not have come to you if I had not had evidence. You take exception to Lans and his ways of life, I have been informed that you have even called him a--a--libertine!" "With modifications--yes!" "I do not ask, Mr. Markham, that you try to withhold your judgments until you know all the facts about my boy. You were never fair to him; you saw him--you see him now--through his father, my poor brother!" "Madam, for his mother's sake I have always kept in touch with his career even when I knew he was beyond any caution or judgment of mine. I know that he has shamefully compromised a young woman and quite openly flaunts his relations with her by calling them some new-fangled name. Perhaps I am a narrow-gauge man, madam. All my life I have been obliged to travel from a certain point to a certain point--I'm made that way. I have endeavoured to look about to help my fellow-men, when I could in justice do so, but I have stuck to the tracks that seem to me to lead safely through the land of my journey. I am not interested in branch roads or sidings." Mrs. Treadwell was a bit breathless and angry but she was too far from shore yet to indulge in relaxation. "Lans is not an evil fellow; he is high-minded and will prove himself in due time. I really am only seeking to help you be patient until he has had his opportunity, and not, in the meantime, make a fatal mistake. A new era is about to dawn when men and women, for the good of the race, will attack social conditions from a different plane from what you and I have been taught to consider right. Lans is in the vanguard of this movement--but I only implore you to give him time and while we are waiting let me ask you this--would you be more lenient to--to this protege of yours than you are to Lans, if I could prove to you that he has been hiding his private life from you entirely? Has, apparently, laid himself bare to your confidence and good-will while, in a secret and shameful manner, he has had very disreputable relations with a young woman in Boston?" Levi Markham took this blow characteristically: he sighed, raised his eyes to the speaker's face, and said calmly: "I thank you, madam, for your interest in my affairs. I can readily see that you would not dare come to me with this matter unless you had facts. I appreciate your good-will toward me and Lans, but I am just wondering if this--this relationship of Sandford Morley's with a--with the young woman, might not be viewed as leniently as Lansing's--if all were known? He might call it by a new-fangled name, you know."