Meanwhile, Alter was waiting for signs and failing to recognize them. He was not, he told himself, the man he had once been, and to his eye she seemed to have changed very little in all the years. Moreover, the fact that there had been real affection between her and her husband made her seem difficult to approach. He was by no means convinced that her old love for himself had survived. It was natural that their present friendship should have taken its place, and any attempt on his part to insist upon love might sever the friendship for which now he chiefly lived. Then came Hartington’s letter. John needed help. It gave Alter his chance, his opening. But he could not be blind to the fact that, if he offered to help the son, the mother, in accepting, would feel that she had placed herself under some obligation; and, whether the offer of marriage were coincident with or subsequent to the offer of assistance, the acceptance of one would at least be a powerful argument for the acceptance of the other. And he wanted her choice to be free. He wanted her to accept him for his own sake, not for that of her son. Yet, apart from all other considerations, he was eager to help John because he felt that John was worth assistance. Alter had reached the point in the lives of successful men at which the highest good and the most intense personal satisfaction seem to spring from the help it is possible to give to others. Far into the night he sat with Hartington’s letter on his knee, considering how best to help, and cursing the impossibility of frankness in this instance. It would have been so easy could he have gone to John’s mother and have said: “You can count on me. Have the boy out. I’ll see him through Oxford. I’ll give him the start which, as I understand him, is all he needs. And all this you will please regard as a side issue. It has nothing whatever to do with our relations with each other. There’s no kind of obligation on you.” But that was impossible. This, by the evil decree of Fate, was a question of money, and money set up an obligation which, where man and woman were concerned, no good-will or friendship could nullify. Hartington said that John had written home. The letter must have arrived. If he went straight to her now, making no mention of his knowledge, she would inevitably look upon him as the man who was able to solve the problem with which her son had confronted her. Her decision would be influenced one way or the other. And, what was more, she would tell him about John; she would feel bound to tell him. He would have to confess foreknowledge, and unending complications would ensue. No; there was one thing to be done, one thing only. He went to his table and wrote to Hartington.