Since he was seventeen years old Reginald had bought all the high-priced things that our fast civilization has to offer in exchange for “soul,” and now the ashes of that past were beginning to grit between his teeth; for he had a sweet memory of peace, purity and of an harmonious-purpose which glinted across his mind angelically as the remains of what had been his baby guesses at real manhood. But this dream, and the sainted mother who had inspired it, had both been devastated by the ignorant animalism of the elder Grove. So when the mother-spirit was released from earth’s control, little Regie’s waiting eyes turned to his father; and watching, he perceived that his father’s shrewd bargaining instincts resulted in increased wealth, which made it possible for him to sow a big crop of gilded misery, and still to pay his son’s bills, while he did likewise; and that doing all this he was yet flattered as a millionaire. So you see, beloved as was his mother’s memory and distinct as had been her teachings to his baby mind, they became but “woman’s notions” when contradicted by his father’s practices, and by the licensing laws of paternal government which assure young men they may sin freely, and yet be wealthy and wise; and healthy, too, if nostrums will make them so. For a time Reginald believed this, seeing the nation’s fathers had by license laws practically declared it. And as the wisdom of the nation’s mothers had been placed under silence as deep as the grave, “no cause or impediment being shown to forbid the banns” between his soul and corruption, he rushed on in the paths prepared for feet like his. But lately he did not feel very healthy; and as for his wealth, he feared that was getting a bit rickety, and his wisdom was hardly at par. So these were Reginald’s character “roots.” But it was the one little radical, or true-life fibre, which vibrated with a thrill when he first met Ethelbert Daksha. At the instant, it seemed to him as though the mirage which ever floated up from the fens of his unrecorded life, was swept away by a breath from over the jasper walls of the eternal city. That curious look out of Ethelbert’s eyes, so all-comprehending, pitiful and yet unmoved, held him, as his mother’s eyes had always done in the past; and he had not a word to say. He felt as such men feel when conscious of the moral distance between their private lives and the lives of sweet girl acquaintances.