“My engagement with you,” interrupted Mr. Morton, “was merely a fatherly subterfuge to keep you away from here while I had a little visit with Mrs. Grayson.” “Then”--he choked, swallowed--“then you know everything?” “Not everything. But I know the essentials.” “Oh, my God!” And Jack collapsed almost bonelessly into a chair and covered his face with his hands. “Come, brace up--there’s nothing to worry about,” half growled Clifford. “It’s all right, Jack,” explained Mary. “Your father says he approves your choice!” Jack was on his feet as though an electric current had hurled him upright. “Is that so, dad?” Mr. Morton nodded. In two eager steps Jack was across the room wringing his father’s hand. “You don’t know how relieved I am!” “Why should you think I’d object after really meeting Mrs. Grayson?” “Call her Mary, dad.” “Mary, then, with your permission. Plainly Mary is a young woman of exceptional sense, and I am sure she and I will understand each other splendidly.” Jack crossed swiftly to Mary. “Mary!” he exclaimed, seizing her hands, “Mary!” And then in a lower voice, though Clifford heard him: “It’s all coming true, Mary,--it’s all coming true!” The Golden Doors had marvelously swung open! Mr. Morton was speaking again: “Let’s get back to sensible talk--which is what I came here for. I wish to commend your discretion in this matter. Boys will be boys, but usually they’re boys in such a noisy way. I’m sure the discretion was yours, Mary.” “Discretion? I don’t know what you mean,” said Mary. “I mean that you have done everything so well,” he continued pleasantly. “You’ve not laid the affair open to instant recognition by thoughtlessly flaunting yourself about with Jack. You’ve even taken the precaution of wearing the conventional rings. It’s the Riverside Drive affair done in the best Riverside-Drive-affair manner.” Clifford saw Mary go white again, and whiter than before, as Mr. Morton spoke; and he thought she was going to fall as she gathered the meaning of his words--gathered what, since he had first entered, had been his real conception of the relationship. “But, dad--” began Jack in a throaty voice. “You don’t know what you’re saying! You don’t understand. The truth is--” “Jack!” cut in Mary. “Oh, yes, I do understand,” his father assured him. “And don’t try to shield Mary with protestations. She doesn’t need such flimsy protection.” “Dad,” demanded the young fellow huskily, “what do you think this situation is?” “The obvious and usual one: you’re living here together; as they always say it on the stage, she’s your mistress.” He turned to Mary. “Jack’s a sentimentalist. But you’re a sensible woman and don’t humbug yourself by hesitating to call a thing by its right name.”