"When I said I stood pat I meant that I would stay on." His eyes laughed at Lockyer. "I guess we can live without Burroughs and his dependents. Maybe they will find they can't live without us." He slowly leaned forward until, with his forearms against the edge of his desk, he was concentrating a memorable gaze upon Lockyer. "Mr. Lockyer," said he, "I have been exercising my privilege as a free man to make a damn fool of myself. I shall continue to exercise it so long as I feel disposed that way. But let me tell you something. I can afford to do it. If a man's asset is money, or character or position or relatives and friends or popular favor or any other perishable article, he must take care how he trifles with it. He may find himself irretrievably ruined. But my asset happens to be none of those things. It is one that can be lost or damaged only by insanity or death. Do you follow me?" The old man looked at him with the sincere and most flattering tribute of compelled admiration. "What a mind you've got, Frederick--and what courage!" "You accept my terms?" "If the others agree--and I think they will." "They will," said Norman. The old man was regarding him with eyes that had genuine anxiety in them. "Why _do_ you do it, Fred?" he said. "Because I wish to be free," replied Norman. He would never have told the full truth to that incredulous old cynic of a time-server--the truth that he was resigning at the dictation of a pride which forbade him to involve others in the ruin he, in his madness, was bent upon. "I don't mean, why do you resign," said Lockyer. "I mean the other--the--woman." Norman laughed harshly. "I've seen too much of the world not to understand," continued Lockyer. "The measureless power of woman over man--especially--pardon me, my dear Norman--especially a bad woman!" "The measureless power of a man's imagination over himself," rejoined Norman. "Did you ever see or hear of a man without imagination being upset by a woman? It's in here, Mr. Lockyer"--he rapped his forehead--"altogether in here." "You realize that. Yet you go on--and for such a--pardon me, my boy, for saying it--for such a trifling object." "What does 'trifling' mean, sir?" replied the young man. "What is trifling and what is important? It depends upon the point of view. What I want--that is vital. What I do not want--that is paltry. It's my nature to go for what I happen to want--to go for it with all there is in me. I will take nothing else--nothing else."