There were plenty of men in the world who would have shrugged their shoulders over the question of Peter Masters' honesty, some who would have accredited his lightest word and yet would have preferred a legal buffer between them and the bargain he drove: many who considered him a model of financial honesty. It was a matter of the personal standpoint: perhaps none of them would have troubled to measure the millionaire by any measure than their own. Peter's own measure was of primitive simplicity--he never took something for nothing, and if he placed his own value on what he bought and what he paid, he at least believed in his own scale of prices. Had he picked up a banknote in the street he would have lodged it with the police unless he considered the amount only equalised his trouble in stopping to rescue it. Had his son dragged himself up the toilsome ladder to manhood (he ignored the possibility of woman's aid), he would have taken him as he was, good or bad, without compunction, but he recognised that Christopher was not the outcome of his own efforts only, that Aymer having expended the unpriceable capital of time, patience and love, might, with all reason, according to Peter Masters' code of life, look for the full return of sole possession in the result. Was he, then, in the face of his own standard of honest dealing, going to rob Aymer of the fruit of his labours, to take so great a something for nothing? Let it be to Peter's everlasting credit that he knew his millions to be as inadequate to offer a return as any beggar's pocket. He had no quarrel with himself over his past conduct, he repudiated nothing and regretted nothing, he merely viewed the question from the immediate standpoint of the present. Was he going to violate the one rule of his life or not? He made no pretence about it. If he claimed his son he would claim him entirely. Christopher would refuse, would resist the claim at first--of that Peter was assured. But it would be Aymer himself who would fight with time on his side and insist on Peter's rights, he was equally assured of that. But still Christopher would refuse. Peter Masters got up and began to walk up and down and parcelled out bribes. "He shall have the Foundry to play with--a garden city for them if he likes. His own affair run on his own silly lines." So he thought, ready to sweep to oblivion rule and system for the possession of this son of his. But there remained Aymer. Whether he gained Christopher in the end or not the very making of the claim would make a break between Aymer and his adopted son,--a gulf over which they would stretch out hands and never meet. Aymer loved him. Aymer of the maimed life, the shattered hopes, whose destiny filled Peter with sick pity even now, so that he stretched out his great arms and moved sharply with a dumb thankfulness to something that he could move. He might as well rob a child--or a beggar--better: he could give them a possible equivalent.