John Merkle had never lost interest in Lorelei, nor forgotten her refusal of his well-meant offer of assistance. From the night of their first meeting she had intrigued his interest, and her marriage to Bob had deepened his friendly feeling. Although he prided himself upon a reputation for harsh cynicism and cherished the conviction that he was wholly without sentiment, he was in reality more emotional than he believed, and Lorelei's courageous efforts to regenerate her husband, her vigorous determination to build respectability and happiness out of the unpromising materials at her hand, had excited his liveliest sympathy. It pleased him to read into her character beauties and nobilities of which she was utterly unconscious if not actually devoid. Now that she had come to a serious crisis Merkle's slowly growing resentment at Bob's parents for refusing to recognize her burst into anger. The result was that soon after his talk with Bob he telephoned Hannibal Wharton, making known the situation in the most disagreeable and biting manner of which he was capable. Strange to say, Wharton heard him through, then thanked him before ringing off. When Hannibal had repeated the news to his wife she moved slowly to a window and stood there staring down into the glittering chasm of Fifth Avenue. Bob's mother was a frail, erect, impassive woman, wearied and saddened with the weight of her husband's millions. There had been a time when society knew her, but of late years she saw few people, and her name was seldom mentioned except in connection with her benefactions. Even the true satisfaction of giving had been denied her, since real charity means sacrifice. Wealth had lent her a painful conspicuousness and had made her a target for multifarious demands so insistent, so ill-considered, so unworthy--many of them--that she had been forced into an isolation, more strict even than her husband's. Great responsibilities had changed Hannibal Wharton into a machine; he had become mechanical even in his daily life, in his pleasures, in his relaxations. His suspicions and his dislikes were also more or less automatic, but in all his married life he had never found cause to complain of anything his wife had done. He was serenely conscious, moreover, of her complete accord with his every action, and now, therefore, in reporting Merkle's conversation he spoke musingly, as a man speaks to himself. "John loves to be caustic; he likes to vocalize his dyspepsia," the old man muttered. "Well, if it's as serious as he seems to think, we may be spared the disgrace of a grandchild." Mrs. Wharton did not stir; there was something uncompromising in the rigid lines of her back and in her stiffly poised head. "People of her kind always have children," he continued, "and that's what I told Bob. I told him he was laying up trouble for himself." "Bob had more to him than we thought," irrelevantly murmured the mother.