Constantine's face quivered; what the emotion was none but himself knew. "You poor fool boy!" he said, thickly. "Don't you know I made you a rich man all along the line? You never did anything at all. It wasn't luck on the stock exchange--it was Mark Constantine back of you. Gad, to have made what you did in the time you did you'd have had to do worse than dabble your hands in the mud. You'd have had to roll in it--like I did." He gave a coarse laugh. "That was what I figured out when you said you wanted Beatrice and what you were going to do to try to get her. I liked you, I wanted you for her husband. I hated the other puppies. So I wasn't going to have Beatrice's husband a cutthroat and a highbinder as he would have to be if he had turned the whole trick. "You young fool, don't you suppose I made the stock exchange yield you the sugarplums? Gad, I knew every cent you spent and made. It was for my girl, my Gorgeous Girl, so why wouldn't I do it? I saved your ideals and kept your hands white so that you would be good enough for her; that was what I figured out the hour after you had told me your intentions. I followed you like the fairy books tell of; I brought you your fortune and your factory and scotched all the enemies about you--and gave you the girl. And you thought you killed the seven-headed dragon yourself.... I don't blame you for the foozle, Steve; I cotton-woolled you all along--it was bound to come. But, damme, you'll come down to brass tacks and take more of my money now and keep her from being unhappy and stop this snivel about earning what you get and needing responsibilities--or you'll find you've put your foot into hell and you can't pull it out!" White-heat anger enveloped Steve's very soul, yet strangely enough he felt not like sinning but rather like Laertes crying out in mental anguish: "Do you see this, O God?" CHAPTER XXI Steve knew he brushed by Aunt Belle, who was coming in to see what her brother was roaring about, and down those detestable gilded curlicue stairs to seek out his wife and try again to make her realize that for once he was determined on what should come to pass as regarded their future together, to force her to realize even if he created a cheap scene. Whatever blame fell upon Constantine's shoulders was not within his province to judge--Constantine was a dying man and Steve was not quite thirty-five. So that ended the matter from Steve's viewpoint. It was his intention not to try to evade his personal blame in the matter but to make reparation to his own self and to his wife if he were permitted. If he could once convince his wife that their sole chance of future happiness and sanity lay in beginning as medium-incomed young persons with all the sane world before them it would have been worth it all--excepting for Mary Faithful.