Mills pretended to be looking over some papers while Shepherd wrote the check, his fingers with difficulty moving the pen. A crisis was at hand; or was it a crisis? His fear of his father, his superstitious awe of Franklin Mills’s supernatural prescience numbed his will. The desk seemed to mark a wide gulf between them. He had frequently rehearsed, since his talk with Constance, the scene in which he would defend the building of the clubhouse for the battery employees; but he was unprepared for this discovery of his purpose. He had meant to seize some opportunity, preferably when he could drive his father to the battery plant and show him the foundations of the clubhouse, for disclosing the fact that he was going ahead, spending his own money. It hadn’t occurred to him that Gurley might sell the stock to his father. He had made a mess of it. He felt himself cowering, weak and ineffectual, before another of those velvety strokes with which his father was always able to defeat him. “You’d better go in early tomorrow and get a new certificate; they’re closing the transfer books. The Rogers is merging with the Central States--formal announcement will be made early in the new year. The combination will make a powerful company. The Rogers lately realized very handsomely on some doubtful securities that had been charged off several years ago. It was known only on the inside. Gurley thought he was making a nice turn for himself, but you see he wasn’t so clever after all!” Shepherd shrank further into himself. It was he who was not clever! He hoped to be dismissed like a presumptuous schoolboy caught in an attempt to evade the rules. Franklin Mills, putting aside the crystal weight, had taken up the ivory paper knife and was drawing it slowly through his shapely, well-kept hands. “I suppose it’s none of my business, Shep, but just why did you sell that stock? It was absolutely safe; and I thought that as it came to you from your mother, and her father had been one of the original incorporators, you would have some sentiment about keeping it. You’re not embarrassed in any way, are you? If you’re not able to live within your income you ought to come to me about it. You can hardly say that I haven’t always stood ready to help when you ran short.” “Well, no, Father; it wasn’t that. The fact is--well, to tell the truth----” Mills was always annoyed by Shepherd’s stammering. He considered it a sign of weakness in his son; something akin to a physical blemish. Shepherd frowned and with a jerk of the head began again determinedly, speaking slowly. “I wanted to build that clubhouse for the factory people. I felt that they deserved it. You refused to help; I couldn’t make you understand how I felt about it. I meant to build it myself--pay for it with my own money. So I sold my Rogers stock. I thought after I got the thing started you wouldn’t object. You see----” Shepherd’s eyes had met his father’s gaze, bent upon him coldly, and he ceased abruptly.