"Father, if you’ll only be patient with me I will tell you. Your bearing toward me has been distressful. I was afraid that your mind—" "Enough of that. My mind is sounder, sir, than yours will ever be. But, suppose something were wrong. Is he the physician to consult? Why, his mind has been dead for years. Why did you consult him if it were not in contempt of me? I ask you why?" "I was standing in the door of our office and happened to notice his sign just across the hall; and I thought that as he knew you well, I would speak to him. I soon saw that he didn’t know what he was talking about, and when he suggested that he ought to see you, I told him no, and changed the subject. That’s my offense, and I beg your pardon." "I will try to believe you," said the Judge, sitting down. "Your office is down town. This one is mine." "Yes, sir, and I will not intrude. I wouldn’t have come in but you wanted—" The Judge waved his hand. "Our business has been transacted." "Yours has, but I have something to say. I don’t want to occupy that musty old den any longer. It doesn’t make any difference to me if there are a thousand javelins of wit sticking in the walls, or a thousand ghosts of oratory floating in the air, I can’t make a living so long as I stay in it. I don’t want to be of the past, but of the present. Your success was not a past but a present, and my present is as valuable to me as yours was to you." "You are at liberty to get out of that office as soon as you like. But before you go, put up some sort of emblem expressive of your contempt of all its memories. Stuff out a suit of old clothes with straw, a scarecrow of the past, set it at the desk and call it—me." "Please don’t talk to me that way. I don’t mean any disrespect—I want to establish myself on a modern footing. You know that Florence and I—" "Don’t speak of her." "Why not? She is to be my wife." "Not with my consent." "Your consent is desirable, but not absolutely necessary. I don’t mean this in impudence; I mean it merely to show my—our determination. I don’t know why you should oppose our marriage, and I have no idea as to what extent you will oppose it, but I wish to say that no extreme will have any effect. You say that you are not ill; you swear that your mind is not affected, and yet you refuse to tell me the cause of your change toward me. I must have done something, either consciously or unconsciously, and now again I beg of you to tell me what it is." The old man leaned forward with his eyes bent upon the floor. "I have seen great actors, but this—go away, Howard. Leave me alone." "Am I ever to know, sir?"