"Good gracious, no!" said Ronnie in surprise. "Why should I quarrel with him? He doesn't worry me. In a way he is amusing, in another way pathetic. I feel sometimes sorry for him. A man with such attainments, such powers and yet so paltry! I often wonder why he prefers the mean way to the big way. He uses his power outrageously, his strength brutally. Perhaps he didn't start right--got all his proportions wrong. I was working it out last night--the beginnings of Steppe--and concluded that he must have had an unhappy childhood. If a child is treated meanly, and is the victim of mean tyrannies, he grows up to regard the triumph of meanness as the supreme end in life. His whole outlook is colored that way, and methods which we normal people look upon as despicable are perfectly legitimate in his eyes." "Good God!" said Sir John aghast. It was the man, not the arguments which startled him. "Children ought not to be left to the chance training which their parents give them," Ronnie went on, full of his subject, "but here, I admit, I am postulating a condition of society which will never be realized. Some day I will start my Mother College. It is a queer sounding title," he said apologetically, "but you will understand I want a great institution where we can take the illegitimate children of the country, the unwanted children. They go to baby farmers and beasts of that kind now. I want a college of babies where we will teach them and train them from their babyhood up to think and feel goodly, not piously. That doesn't matter. But bigly and generously. To have high ideals and broad visions; to--" He stopped and blushed, conscious of their interest and stupefaction; squirmed unhappily in his chair, and rubbed his chin nervously with the knuckles of his hand. Sir John Maxton leaned back in his chair, his face twitching. A waiter was passing. "Bring me a brandy," he said hoarsely, "a double brandy." Christina had only wanted water. VII "What flabbergasts me is Ronnie's willingness to go against Steppe," said the doctor, just before he dropped Sir John at his chambers. He had done most of the talking since they left Vivaldi's and Maxton had been content that he should. "I can only suppose that Ronnie has had a row with Jan." "Tell me this, Merville," said Sir John, leaning his arms on the edge of the door and speaking into the car, "if you believe that Steppe is the rascal I pretty well know him to be, why are you allowing Beryl to marry him?" An awkward question for the doctor. "Oh, well--one isn't sure. I may be in error after all. Steppe is quite a good fellow." "Do you owe him money?" asked Maxton quietly. Close friendship has its privileges. "A little--nothing to speak of. You don't think I would sacrifice Beryl--?" "I don't know, Bertram--I don't know. Why ever you took up with that crowd is beyond me."