“You are not a father, Talbot--you are a brute! There is not a dog in your kennels that would not treat his litter better than you have treated Harry! You turned him out in the night without a penny to his name; you break his mother's heart; you refuse to hear a word he has to say, and then you have the audacity to pass him on the steps of this club where he is my guest--my guest, remember--look him squarely in the face and ignore him. That, gentlemen, is what Talbot Rutter did one minute ago. You have disgraced your blood and your name and you have laid up for your old age untold misery and suffering. Never, as long as I live, will I speak to you again, nor shall Harry, whom you have humiliated! Hereafter _I_ am his father! Do you hear?” During the whole outburst the colonel had not moved a muscle of his face nor had he shifted his body a quarter of an inch. He stood with his back to the door through which could be seen the amazed faces of his fellow-members--one hand tight shut behind his back, the other loose by his side, his eyes fixed on his antagonist. Then slowly, one word at a time, as if he had purposely measured the intervals of speech, he said, in a voice hardly heard beyond the door, so low was it: “Are--you--through--St. George?” “Yes, by God!--I am, and forever!” “Then, gentlemen”--and he waved his hand courteously to the astounded listeners--“may I ask you all to join me? John, bring the juleps!” CHAPTER XI All the way back to his house St. George's wrath kept him silent. He had rarely been so stirred. He was not a brawler--his whole life had been one of peace; his whole ambition to be the healer of differences, and yet there were some things he could not stand. One of these was cruelty to a human being, and Rutter's public disowning of Harry was cruelty of the most contemptible kind. But one explanation of such an outrage was possible--the man's intolerable egoism, added to his insufferable conceit. Only once did Temple address Harry, walking silently by his side under the magnolias, and then only to remark, more to himself than to his companion--“It's his damned, dirty pride, Harry--that's what it is!” Harry also held his peace. He had no theories regarding his father's conduct: only facts confronted him, one being that he had purposely humiliated him before the men who had known him from a boy, and with whom his future life must be cast. The end had come now. He was adrift without a home. Even Kate was lost. This last attack of his father's would widen the breach between them, for she would never overlook this last stigma when she heard of it, as she certainly must. Nobody would then be left on his side except his dear mother, the old house servants, and St. George, and of these St. George alone could be of any service to him.