“Yes; for a longish time. They didn’t know much about disinfecting wounds in those days.... But Leila,” he resumed, with his smiling obstinacy, “Leila’s dead right, you know. It’s a better world now. Think of what has been done to relieve suffering since then!” When he pronounced the word “suffering” the vertical furrows in his forehead deepened as though he felt the actual pang of his old wound. “Oh, I believe in progress every bit as much as _she_ does--I believe we’re working out toward something better. If we weren’t....” He shrugged his mighty shoulders, reached lazily for the adjoining tray, and mixed my glass of whiskey-and-soda. “But the war--you were wounded at Bull Run?” “Yes.” He looked at his watch. “But I’m off to bed now. I promised the children to take them for an early canter tomorrow, before lessons, and I have to have my seven or eight hours of sleep to feel fit. I’m getting on, you see. Put out the lights when you come up.” No; he wouldn’t talk about the war. * * * * * It was not long afterward that Mrs. Delane appealed to me to testify to Hayley’s perfection. She had come back from her last absence--a six weeks’ flutter at Newport--rather painfully subdued and pinched-looking. For the first time I saw in the corners of her mouth that middle-aged droop which has nothing to do with the loss of teeth. “How common-looking she’ll be in a few years!” I thought uncharitably. “Perfect--perfect,” she insisted; and then, plaintively: “And yet--” I echoed coldly: “And yet?” “With the children, for instance. He’s everything to them. He’s cut me out with my own children.” She was half joking, half whimpering. Presently she stole an eye-lashed look at me, and added: “And at times he’s so _hard_.” “Delane?” “Oh, I know you won’t believe it. But in business matters--have you never noticed? You wouldn’t admit it, I suppose. But there are times when one simply can’t move him.” We were in the library, and she glanced up at the breast-plated forbear. “He’s as hard to the touch as _that_.” She pointed to the steel convexity. “Not the Delane I know,” I murmured, embarrassed by these confidences. “Ah, you think you know him?” she half-sneered; then, with a dutiful accent: “I’ve always said he was a perfect father--and he’s made the children think so. And yet--” He came in, and dropping a pale smile on him she drifted away, calling to her children. I thought to myself: “She’s getting on, and something has told her so at Newport. Poor thing!” Delane looked as preoccupied as she did; but he said nothing till after she had left us that evening. Then he suddenly turned to me. “Look here. You’re a good friend of ours. Will you help me to think out a rather bothersome question?” “Me, sir?” I said, surprised by the “ours,” and overcome by so solemn an appeal from my elder.