But Colonel Mallett scarcely smiled, scarcely heard; and his son watched him furtively. The trim, elastic figure was less upright this summer; the close gray hair and cavalry mustache had turned white very rapidly since spring. For the first time, too, in all his life, Colonel Mallett wore spectacles; and the thin gold rims irritated his ears and the delicate bridge of his nose. Under his pleasant eyes the fine skin had darkened noticeably; thin new lines had sprung downward from the nostrils' clean-cut wings; but the most noticeable change was in his hands, which were no longer firm and fairly smooth, but were now the hands of an old man, restless if not tremulous, unsteady in handling the cigar which, unnoticed, had gone out. They--father and son--had never been very intimate. An excellent understanding had always existed between them with nothing deeper in it than a natural affection and an instinctive respect for each other's privacy. This respect now oppressed Duane because long habit, and the understood pact, seemed to bar him from a sympathy and a practical affection which, for the first time, it seemed to him his father might care for. That his father was worried was plain enough; but how anxious and with how much reason, he had hesitated to ask, waiting for some voluntary admission, or at least some opening, which the older man never gave. That night, however, he had tried an opening for himself, offering the old stock story which had always, heretofore, amused his father. And there had been no response. In silence he thought the matter over; his sympathy was always quick; it hurt him to remain aloof when there might be a chance that he could help a little. "It may amuse you," he said carelessly, "to know how much I've made since I came back from Paris." The elder man looked up preoccupied. His son went on: "What you set aside for me brings me ten thousand a year, you know. So far I haven't touched it. Isn't that pretty good for a start?" Colonel Mallett sat up straighter with a glimmer of interest in his eyes. Duane went on, checking off on his fingers: "I got fifteen hundred for Mrs. Varick's portrait, the same for Mrs. James Cray's, a thousand each for portraits of Carl and Friedrich Gumble; that makes five thousand. Then I had three thousand for the music-room I did for Mrs. Ellis; and Dinklespiel Brothers, who handle my pictures, have sold every one I sent; which gives me twelve thousand so far." "I am perfectly astonished," murmured his father. Duane laughed. "Oh, I know very well that sheer merit had nothing much to do with it. The people who gave me orders are all your friends. They did it as they might have sent in wedding presents; I am your son; I come back from Paris; it's up to them to do something. They've done it--those who ever will, I expect--and from now on it will be different." "They've given you a start," said his father.