"Love, to you, is a word of four letters and a definition which you have extracted from the dictionary. But love, real love, dewy and palpitant and tender, you do not know. If God made you and me, and men and women, believe me He made love, too. But to come back. It's about time you quit hounding Joe Garland. It is not worthy of you, and it is cowardly. The thing for you to do is to reach out and lend him a hand." "Why I, any more than you?" the other demanded. "Why don't you reach him a hand?" "I have. I'm reaching him a hand now. I'm trying to get you not to down the Promotion Committee's proposition of sending him away. I got him the job at Hilo with Mason and Fitch. I've got him half a dozen jobs, out of every one of which you drove him. But never mind that. Don't forget one thing--and a little frankness won't hurt you--it is not fair play to saddle another fault on Joe Garland; and you know that you, least of all, are the man to do it. Why, man, it's not good taste. It's positively indecent." "Now I don't follow you," Percival Ford answered. "You're up in the air with some obscure scientific theory of heredity and personal irresponsibility. But how any theory can hold Joe Garland irresponsible for his wrongdoings and at the same time hold me personally responsible for them--more responsible than any one else, including Joe Garland--is beyond me." "It's a matter of delicacy, I suppose, or of taste, that prevents you from following me," Dr. Kennedy snapped out. "It's all very well, for the sake of society, tacitly to ignore some things, but you do more than tacitly ignore." "What is it, pray, that I tacitly ignore!" Dr. Kennedy was angry. A deeper red than that of constitutional Scotch and soda suffused his face, as he answered: "Your father's son." "Now just what do you mean?" "Damn it, man, you can't ask me to be plainer spoken than that. But if you will, all right--Isaac Ford's son--Joe Garland--your brother." Percival Ford sat quietly, an annoyed and shocked expression on his face. Kennedy looked at him curiously, then, as the slow minutes dragged by, became embarrassed and frightened. "My God!" he cried finally, "you don't mean to tell me that you didn't know!" As in answer, Percival Ford's cheeks turned slowly grey. "It's a ghastly joke," he said; "a ghastly joke." The doctor had got himself in hand. "Everybody knows it," he said. "I thought you knew it. And since you don't know it, it's time you did, and I'm glad of the chance of setting you straight. Joe Garland and you are brothers--half-brothers." "It's a lie," Ford cried. "You don't mean it. Joe Garland's mother was Eliza Kunilio." (Dr. Kennedy nodded.) "I remember her well, with her duck pond and _taro_ patch. His father was Joseph Garland, the beach- comber." (Dr. Kennedy shook his head.) "He died only two or three years ago. He used to get drunk. There's where Joe got his dissoluteness. There's the heredity for you."