He could not escape. A few seconds and he was alone with her in the little room--how often had he--they--been glad of its quiet and seclusion on such occasions! She laid her hand upon his shoulders, gazed at him proudly. "It was here," said she, "that you first kissed me. Do you remember?" To take her gaze from his face and to avoid seeing her look of loving trust, he put his arms round her. "I don't deserve you," he said--one of those empty pretenses of confession that yet give the human soul a sense of truthfulness. "You'd not say that if you knew how happy you make me," murmured she. The welcome sound of a step in the hall give him his release. When he was in the street, he wiped his hot face with his handkerchief. "And I thought I had no moral sense left!" he reflected--not the first man, in this climax day of the triumph of selfish philosophies, to be astonished by the discovery that the dead hands of heredity and tradition have a power that can successfully defy reason. He started to walk back home, on impulse took a passing taxi and went to his club. It was the Federal. They said of it that no man who amounted to anything in New York could be elected a member, because any man on his way up could not but offend one or more of the important persons in control. Most of its members were nominated at birth or in childhood and elected as soon as they were twenty-one. Norman was elected after he became a man of consequence. He regarded it as one of the signal triumphs of his career; and beyond question it was proof of his power, of the eagerness of important men, despite their jealousy, to please him and to be in a position to get the benefit of his brains should need arise. Norman's whole career, like every career great and small, in the arena of action, was a derision of the ancient moralities, a demonstration of the value of fear as an aid to success. Even his friends--and he had as many as he cared to have--had been drawn to him by the desire to placate him, to stand well where there was danger in standing ill.