“I suppose I've got myself in a pretty mess,” Lionel remarked, ruefully, when Weston had left him and his father together. “My mother has made me promise time after time not to fight; but, you see, I did.” “Yes, I see you did,” Galt responded, a lump of queer approval in his throat. “I couldn't help it--I really couldn't,” Lionel said, with a rueful look at his hands, which were covered with the blood of his antagonist. “I must be a bad boy; but oh, I couldn't let him say my beautiful mother--my sweet mo--” He choked up. “I couldn't--I simply couldn't! She is so sweet and good! I couldn't help it!” “Of course not, but don't worry about it,” Galt said, sunken to depths of shame he had never reached before. “You must try to forget it--forget the whole thing.” “I am afraid my mother will find out about it, and, you know, she mustn't,” the child said, his great eyes filled with concern. “She would ask what the boy said, and Granny says she must never be told nasty things children say to me. Such things make her sad and keep her from painting. She must not find out about this--this fight.” “Well, she really need not know,” Galt said, as the heat of his shame mantled his face and brow. “But she _will_,” Lionel insisted, gloomily, “for she is sure to see this blood on me. It is on my neck, and running down under my collar. Do you suppose I could get it off without soiling my waist?” Galt unbuttoned the broad white collar, and drew it away from the child's neck. “It hasn't touched it yet,” he said. “Wait a moment!” And he adroitly, and yet with oddly quivering fingers, inserted his own handkerchief between the collar and the trickling blood. “Now come into the house, and I'll fix you up. Your clothes are a little rumpled, but when I have washed the blood off no one need know about your fight.” “Oh, that would be a _fine_ idea!” Lionel exclaimed, joyfully. He put his little hand into his father's, and together they went into the house. “She won't know, will she?” “No, she need not know,” Galt said aloud; but in his thought he added: “Lionel, you are a little gentleman. You are a living proof that blood will tell.” The lonely man's heart was warmed by an inward glow of pride which was quickly succeeded by an icy breath of despair that seemed to blow over him. This, he reflected, was only the introductory part of the vast soul tragedy he himself had put on the stage of existence. The trials he had encountered through young manhood were naught to those foreshadowed in the unsuspecting and trusting face at his side. “Here is the bath,” he said, as they reached the white-tiled room on the second floor. “Now go in, and be careful to take off your blouse without getting it bloody. If we are going to work this thing we must work it right. Perhaps you'd better strip and bathe all over. It will make you feel good anyway, after that fierce round of yours. Let me fill the tub.”