George went in. He remembered most of the faces that disclosed excitement while fawning upon his prosperity. He received an unpleasant impression that these poor and ignorant people concealed a dangerous envy, that they would be glad to grasp in one moment, even of violence, all that it had taken him years of difficult struggle to acquire. Whether that was so or not they ought not to stand before him as if his success were a crown. He tried to keep contempt from his voice. "Please sit down. I want to talk to my mother. Where----" With slow steps she crossed the kitchen and opened the door of the parlour, beckoning. He followed, knowing what he would find in that uncomfortable, gala room of the poor. He closed the door. In the half light he saw standing on trestles an oblong box altogether too large for the walls that seemed to crowd it. He had no feeling that anything of his father was there. He realized with a sense of helpless regret that all that remained to him of that unhappy man were the ghosts of such emotions as avarice, fear, and the instinct to sacrifice one's own flesh and blood for a competence. "Why don't you look at him, George?" "I don't think he'd care to have me looking at him now." She wiped her eyes. "You are too bitter against your father. After all, he was a good man." "Why should death," he asked her, musingly, "make people seem better than they were in life? It isn't so." "That's wicked. If your father could rise----" His attention was caught by an air of pointing the oblong box had, as if to something infinitely farther than ambition and success, yet so close it angered him he couldn't see or touch it. His father had gone there, beyond the farthest horizon of all. Old Planter couldn't make trouble for him now. He was quite safe. Over in Europe, he reflected, they didn't have enough coffins. The oblong box for the first time made him think of that war, that was making him rich, in terms of life instead of dollars and cents. He felt dissatisfied. "There should be more light here," he said, defensively. But his mother shook her head. He arranged a chair for her and sat near by while they discussed the details of her departure. She let him see that she shrank from leaving the house, against which, nevertheless, she had bitterly complained ever since Old Planter had got it. Evidently she wanted to linger in her familiar rut, awaiting with the attitude of a martyr whatever fate might offer. That was the reason people had to be helped, because they preferred vicious inertia to the efforts and risks of change. Then why did they want the prizes of those who had had the courage to go forth and fight? Why couldn't Squibs see that?