"I thought you would." The retort was all but a snarl. "And, do you know, when I asked some of his friends about the club if they knew, I caught them looking at one another in an odd sort of way with twinkles in their eyes? Oh no, they didn't know where he was. But I found out, all the same. I met his mother down-town. She said he had gone on a hurried trip to Norfolk. You can see through that, can't you? I can, if you can't. Knoxville is on the way to Norfolk. The two are at that party together; and, not only that, I'll bet this whole town knows it. That ought to be stopped. I know my daughter, if you don't, sir. She is not acting right. She has plunged into pleasure and excitement till she doesn't know what she wants. A new string of diamonds wouldn't amuse her a minute. This giddy, fast life has actually cursed her. The other night I caught her taking morphine tablets to make her sleep--said she'd lie awake and think till morning if she didn't. She hasn't contracted the habit yet, but she can easy enough if she keeps it up. She takes a bottle of them wherever she goes. When I was young, a woman who was a mother of a child like hers loved it, nursed it, petted it, got natural joy out of it; but Irene seldom speaks to Dick, and he doesn't care for her any more than for a stranger, but he loves you--God only knows why, but he does. It is 'Daddy, Daddy, Daddy' with nearly every breath he draws." Mostyn felt a force within him rising and expanding. A sob lodged in his tight throat and pained him. He was grateful for the deepening shadows, for the droning prattle from the old lips. He sank into a chair. The droning continued, sounding far off. A thousand incidents and faces (smiling and blending) sprang upon him out of the past--the happy, irresponsible past, the seductive, confident, ambitious past. Surely Fate was a mental entity, capable of crafty design against the heedless young. He remembered the vows of chastity and honor he had made during a revival in a country church under a blazing faith. He recalled how soon they were forgotten, how sure he was, later on, that Nature's physical laws were the highest known. Man was made to live, enjoy, and conquer all if he could. And he had succeeded. He had become rich and prosperous. Next he found his memory swimming through that black period of satiated desire and disgust of self. "I wish folks would not mix _me_ up with your private matters." The words rose sharply from the senile prattle and penetrated Mostyn's lethargy. "There's old Jeff Henderson--he had the cheek to come to me to-day to borrow money. Said his family was in rags and starving. Said you euchred him out of all he had and got your start on it. What in the name of common sense does he come to _me_ for? I don't own you, and I knew nothing about that transaction, either. I reckon he's going crazy, but that doesn't keep him from bothering me."