“To me,” said Wayne musingly, “it is only the beginning. We had been travelling in a hard rut. I had become immensely bored with the family life. Now we shall see the vista broaden and lengthen. My curiosity is on edge. My father’s wife--ah, the thought of it! I am at her feet; I crave her blessing! Your point of view is all wrong, dear sister. We must put such feelings aside; our duty, Fanny, is not to the dead but to the living.” “Wayne! Wayne! Will you stop? You are not yourself; it’s not like you to talk so.” “My dear Fanny,” he persisted, flicking the ash from his cigar, “if in intimating that I am not myself you imply that I have been drinking I will say to you that you never did me a greater wrong. Not only have I had no form of drink to-day but our own chaste river water, but it may interest you to know that I have cut out the whiskey when it is red altogether. I scorn it; I put it away forever. I signalize our father’s marriage by renouncing drink. Will you not congratulate me?” “I don’t understand you. It is not like you to talk this way.” She was mystified, and stared at him with dry eyes, wondering. “You don’t seem impressed by my reformation; maybe you don’t believe I can quit! I tell you, Fanny, the Blotter will soak up the blithesome cocktail no more. When the new Mrs. Roger Craighill comes she shall find me the most abstemious person in town. My friends--and I still have one or two--will be incredulous and amazed; my enemies will express regret; the kind who have robbed me when I’ve been loaded will miss an income that has been as sure as taxes. I have already committed myself to father, and he expressed himself with his habitual reserve as delighted.” Mrs. Blair rose and changed her seat to get nearer him; her mystification grew. There was a bitter undernote that belied his surface lightness. “Wayne, there is something I want you to do: I want you to move out of father’s house; I don’t want you to stay after this woman comes.” “But, Fanny, I’ve promised father to remain! Can’t you see what a lot of gossip would be caused by my leaving? Think of the embarrassment and annoyance to father! Here we should have a realization of the old joke about the cruel stepmother and the incorrigible, brow-beaten son, driven from home! I tell you, father is no child; he has foreseen exactly that possibility, as he foresees all possibilities. He is vain of his prophetic vision; you can’t lose father, I tell you!” “But after a few weeks,” she pleaded, “when the town has got used to her being here, you will have settled all that and you can make some plausible excuse for leaving. You can come here and live with us. John would be only too glad.”