Galorey answered, “Quite so,” gravely. “I know it. I knew it when Dan turned up at Osdene—” Holding his pipe bowl in the palm of his slender hand, he smoked meditatively. He hadn’t thought about things, as he had been doing lately, for many years. His sense of honor was the strongest thing in Gordon Galorey, the only thing in him, perhaps, that had been left unsmirched by the touch of the world. He was unquestionably a gentleman. “Blair, however,” he said, “wasn’t as keen on this scent as you’d expect. His intuition was wrong.” Ruggles raised his eyebrows slightly. “I mean to say,” Lord Galorey went on, “that he knew me in the West when I had cut loose for a few blessed months from just these things into which he has sent his boy—from what, if I had a son, God knows I’d throw him as far as I could.” “Blair wanted Dan to see the world.” “Of course, that is right enough. We all have to see it, I fancy, but this boy isn’t ready to look at it.” “He is twenty-two,” Ruggles returned. “When I was his age I was supporting four people.” Galorey went on: “Osdene Park at present isn’t the window for Blair’s boy to see life through, and that is what I have come up to London to talk to you about, Mr. Ruggles. I should like to have you take him away.” “What’s Dan been up to down there?” “Nothing as yet, but he is in the pocket of a woman—he is in a nest of women.” Ruggles’ broad face had not altered its expression of quiet expectation. “There’s a lot of ’em down there?” he asked. “There are two,” Galorey said briefly, “and one of them is my wife.” Ruggles turned his cigarette between his great fingers. He was a slow thinker. He had none of old Blair’s keenness, but he had other qualities. Galorey saw that he had not been quite understood, and he waited and then said: “Lady Galorey is like the rest of modern wives, and I am like a lot of modern husbands. We each go our own way. My way is a worthless one, God knows I don’t stand up for it, but it is not my wife’s way in any sense of the word.” “Does she want Dan to go along on her road?” Ruggles asked. “And how far?” “We are financially strapped just now,” said Galorey calmly, “and she has got money from the boy.” He didn’t remove his pipe from his mouth; still holding it between his teeth he put his hand in his pocket, took out his wallet, drew forth four checks and laid them down before Ruggles. “It is quite a sum,” Galorey noted, “sufficient to do a lot to Osdene Park in the way of needed repairs.” Ruggles had never seen a smile such as curved his companion’s lips. “But Osdene Park will have to be repaired by money from some other source.” Ruggles wondered how the husband had got hold of the checks, but he didn’t ask and he did not look at the papers. “When Dan came to the Park,” said Galorey, “I stopped bridge playing, but this more than takes its place!” Ruggles’ big hand went slowly toward the checks; he touched them with his fingers and said: “Is Dan in love with your wife?”