"Frank," said the elder brother coolly, "I should really be warranted in throwing you out of the window." "Lay hold!" said the athlete complacently. Then there was silence for a time, and the two smoked quietly, now and again eying each other calmly, as if there had been no passage of arms between them. The ladies were coming in from the veranda. Frank had a vague sensation of uneasiness. He was of that type of man who seeks to exclude women from the discussion of business and who doubts the propriety of their holding property in their own right, even more than the policy of extending to them the suffrage. But the broker's coolness in the feminine presence implied the conviction that after all it would be men who would control whatever extension of privilege the future might hold for women. He was contemplating even now an intention of enlisting the interest of these as against the fraternal kicker. It was he, therefore, who renewed the subject immediately upon their entrance. "You are mistaken, Frank," he said. "I gave Jasper Gorham to understand distinctly that in any event we would act on our own responsibility, and lose any money that may be lost,--if the boy should escape surveillance." "What is it that Mr. Gorham wants?" demanded their mother, younger of aspect than one would expect from the presence of these stalwart sons. Her hair was abundant, though white, and waved heavily back from a strong, sweet, animated face with fine, well-set blue eyes. She was clad still in a mourning dress in memory of the son who had perished in the pestilence, and her voice trembled on the syllables of the manager's name. The younger lady paused, too, at the sound, and turned her head inquiringly. She wore a dainty house-gown, but even its tones were black and white. She had dark hair rolled _à la Pompadour_, and on her soft pink-and-white face was an incongruous expression of determination that glanced brightly, too, in her clear gray eyes. She had taken a baby of six months of age from a white-capped nurse, and was just consigning him to the arms of his uncle, for this was Jim's wife. "Gorham wants to avoid imprisoning a boy--a mere child--who is somehow concerned in the fire and robbery--suspected of knowing something about the affair," explained the elder Vanbigh. "Just like him!" cried both women, in a breath. "Of course he will prosecute the little lad, if the evidence should warrant it, but he thinks it the unlikeliest thing in the world that the boy is guilty at all, and until there is more developed against the child he hates to lock him up for months and months! It would do no good for Gorham to refuse to prosecute him, for the other prosecutors would hold on to him. So the little boy has gone to jail. Gorham is terribly wrought up about it." "But can't you arrange it somehow, James?" his mother asked. "I should so like for you to be able to do something for Mr. Gorham." She sighed as she spoke.