But a gush of warm-blooded hatred welled over him--hatred that turned this silver heaven into an iron-red hell. No; he was pledged fighter in the cause of the mountain that must be all men's. He was vaguely aware that this reborn fealty came from two mothering, radiant eyes, that watched his steps in light and darkness, and waited with shadowy arms to welcome him at war's end. The morning's headlines obtruded on Paul Judson's attention, at his usual early breakfast. They caused no lightening of his accustomed frown. Uncertainly he fumed around the place. When he saw Pelham about to start for the city, he walked over and intercepted him. "Your car woke us up at three last night." "It was shortly after two when I got here." "You'll agree with me that such hours are a bad influence on the boys. Your mother and I go to bed at ten. I can't have it." Pelham did not answer, an ugly surge of anger up-boiling within him. "It won't do for Hollis and Ned. It isn't decent. They're bound to imagine you are keeping bad company--of both sexes----" The wrath boiled over. "Father! You know I've been busy speaking--last night was the debate--you know I've been busy----" His father's mouth closed to a thin line, then opened. "I can't have it. They don't know what you do with your time; I am glad of that. You'll have to leave the mountain." Pelham stood his ground against the menacing stare. "I shall be glad to." There was a blank wrench of anguish within him, at the thought of leaving the familiar home; the mere difficulties of moving and settling again loomed mountain-high. "Your suggestion that I am going with bad companions is trash, and you know it." He hesitated, then drove on. "I'll leave by Saturday." Paul turned away. "It will be a good thing." His soul stinging with the father's injustice, he waited until the other had gone in leisurely certainty down the hill, and went in to his mother. "I'm to leave the mountain next Saturday, mother." "It's necessary, Pelham. You have distressed your father in so many ways, I cannot see anything else for you to do." Hurt pride spoke within him. "He said my late hours set a bad example for the boys." "Yes ... that too...." The words crowded out. "He said that I was late because I was going with bad companions, when he knows that's a lie!" "Pelham, you shall not speak that way of your father to me." "Mother, you know I've been at meetings and debates; you know how straight I've been. If he'd had his way, I wouldn't have been," he added with heated significance. "What do you mean?" The unrehearsed query came against her will. "When I was visiting at the Meades, he advised me to go to Butler's Avenue, mother--to go to the Red Light district--to go to the women there. That was his fatherly advice to me!" Her face assumed a Puritanic severity, an alien look; she masked the tumult of her heart with this outward symbol of incredulity. "I cannot believe you, Pelham."