"Sunsets and vanity," he wrote with a flourish and lost his temper. Well, that phase in Brian's life was closed forever, thanks to Whitaker's meddling tongue. Never again would Kenny lay himself open to misinterpretation by seeking commissions for his son. Brian could write truth for Whitaker with a blue pencil and be damned! "Hairbrained, unquenchable youth," he wrote next and added airily after this: "This is likely hair and teeth." "Irresponsible." "Failure as a parent." This he underlined. "Need to suffer and learn something of the psychology of sacrifice." "Romantic attitude toward the truth." "Improvidence. Need for plebeian regularity in money affairs and petty debt." "Disorder--chairs to sit down on without looking first." "I borrow Brian's money and his clothes." "Pawned shotgun, tennis racket, some fishing tackle and golf clubs." "Note: Look over tickets." "A tendency to indolence." He had begun with an air of bored amusement; he finished grimly, read and reread. In the light of the Craig-and-Whitaker analysis, which dovetailed in the similarity of their venom, the details might, he fancied with a lifting of his brows, be classified under three general headings: youth, irresponsibility and a romantic attitude toward the truth. The envious charge of youth he attributed instantly to the thinning of John Whitaker's grayish hair, and felt better. In irresponsibility he read, agreeably, needful temperament. And his romantic attitude toward the truth was merely a brilliant overplus of imagination without which life would be insufferably dull. He read the list again with colors flying and drum beating victory. Though singly he could refute each item, an unguarded perusal when he felt complacent, brought the hot blood back to his face in a rush of mortification and dismay. With a curse he flung the book across the room. Then unreasonably he went after it and wrote at the end: "Life is a battle. I do not fight. And life is not an individual adventure." The final sentence startled him most of all. Again he read it all and the memory of Brian, white, aggressive, desperately intent upon escape, came between him and his quest of self-content. It always bothered him. It had driven him to hunt the psaltery stick, repent his lie to Garry and water the fern. It had driven him out upon the road. Mocking voices rose now from the depths. Was it--could it all be true? The shock of the thought was cataclysmic and he longed for the self-respect and confidence in which he had basked that night in Hannah's kitchen. Must the world side with Brian? He was sorry about the shotgun. He was sorry about the sunsets. By the Blessed Bell of Clare, he was willing to be sorry about anything, little as he felt himself to blame. Was he to blame? Had he not paid for it all in his days of stormy penance?