"I spoke as a fool. 'Twas my punishment, perhaps, to believe it; but, Lord!"--he eyed his son up and down--"to think my punishment should take this form!" He caught Sam's arm suddenly and wheeled him about in face of a glass shop-front. "Man, look at yourself! Make the boy something different from _that!_ Do what I'd have done for you if ever you had given me a chance. Turn him loose among gentlemen; don't be afraid if he idles and wastes money; let him riot out his youth if he will--he'll be learning all the time, learning something you don't know how to teach, and maybe when his purse is emptied he'll come back to you a gentleman. I tell you there's no difference in the world like that between a gentleman and a man who's not a gentleman. Money can't buy it; and, after the start, money can't change or hide it. The thing is there, or it isn't." "Whatever the thing is," said Sam sullenly, "you are asking me to peril my son's soul for it." They had reached the Hoe by this time. John Rosewarne dropped upon a bench and sat resting both hands on his staff and gazing over the twinkling waters of the Sound. "Anne married a gentleman," pursued Sam. "Ay, and a rake. A-ah!" muttered the old man after a moment, drawing a long breath, "if only that boy of hers weren't blind! But he doesn't carry the name, while _you_."--He broke off with a savage laugh. "What's that you said a moment ago?--something about immortal souls." "I said there's a world beyond this, and,"-- "Is there? That's what I'm concerned to know just now. And_ you?_ What are you proposing to do when you get there?" He withdrew his eyes from the bright seascape and let them travel slowly over his son. "_You!_ sitting there like a blot on God's sunshine! By what right should you expect another world, who have cut such a figure in this one? I have known love and lust, and drink and hard work and hard fighting; I have been down in the depths, and again I have known moments to make a man smack his hands together for joy to be alive and doing. But you? What kind of man are you, you son of mine? What do you live for? Why did you marry? And what did you and your poor woman find to talk about?" Whatever bullying Sam suffered, he had his revenge in this--that he and no other man could exasperate his father to weakness. He rubbed his thin side whiskers now and muttered something about 'an acceptable sacrifice.'