"I have some important matters to consider," he said. "Do not allow me to be disturbed until Doctor and Mrs. Sherman come with the car." His privacy thus secured, Blake sat at his desk, staring fixedly before him. His brow was compressed into wrinkles, his dark face, still showing a yellowish pallor, was hard and set. He reviewed the entire situation, and as his consuming ambition contemplated the glories of success, and the success after that, and the succession of successes that led up and ever up, his every nerve was afire with an excruciating, impatient pleasure. For a space while Katherine had confronted him, and for a space after she had gone, he had shrunk from this business he was carrying through. But he had spoken truthfully to Mr. Brown when he had said that his revulsion was but a temporary feeling, and that of his own accord he would have come back to his original decision. He had had such revulsions before, and each time he had swung as surely back to his purpose as does the disturbed needle to the magnetic pole. Westville considered Harrison Blake a happy blend of the best of his father and mother; whereas, in point of fact, his father and his mother lived in him with their personalities almost intact. There was his mother, with her idealism and her high sense of honour; and his father, with his boundless ambition and his lack of principles. In the earlier years of Blake's manhood his mother's qualities had dominated. He had sincerely tried to do great work for Westville, and had done it; and the reputation he had then made, and the gratitude he had then won, were the seed from which had grown the great esteem with which Westville now regarded him. But a few years back he had found that rise, through virtue, was slow and beset with barriers. His ambition had become impatient. Now that he was a figure of local power and importance, temptation began to assail him with offers of rapid elevation if only he would be complaisant. In this situation, the father in him rose into the ascendency; he had compromised and yielded, though always managing to keep his dubious transactions secret. And now at length ambition ruled him--though as yet not undisturbed, for conscience sometimes rose in unexpected revolt and gave him many a bitter battle. When his stenographer told Blake that Doctor and Mrs. Sherman were waiting at the curb, he descended with something more like his usual cast of countenance. Elsie and her husband were in the tonneau, and as Blake crossed the sidewalk to the car she stretched out a nervous hand and gave him a worn, excited smile. "It is so good of you to take us out to The Sycamores for over night!" she exclaimed. "It's such a pleasure--and such a relief!"