“Call it that, if you like. Life is little to you yet; some day you will see how wide the horizons really are. But, as I say, you are likely to pay for the privilege--pay in advance. It’s coming to you.” Silence for a few moments while the smoke curled upward in delicate little rings from Bromley’s pipe. Then Philip said soberly: “You spoke a while back of reversion to type. I don’t know what type it is that I am reverting to. My people are all decent and well behaved, as far back as I know anything about them.” “Oh, that,” said Bromley lightly. “When it comes to ancestors and the heredities, most of us can find anything we are looking for, if we go back far enough. It is a family tradition of ours that there was once a Wigglesworth who was a raw-head-and-bloody-bones pirate and wound up by getting himself hanged in chains. I shouldn’t worry, if I were you.” “That is just the difference between us, Harry,” was the somber rejoinder. “You wouldn’t worry if you knew the world were coming to an end to-morrow. I don’t happen to be built that way. For a time this evening, while I was with Jean Dabney, I was able to recognize myself as the normal Philip Trask. But a few minutes after we parted I was a bloody murderer--in all but the actual accomplishment of the thing; I could have killed Middleton without a qualm. If the crazy fit had lasted a minute or two longer, I don’t doubt but I should have killed him.” “Well, you didn’t kill him; which is the main thing, after all. Let it go. You’ve got it out of your system now. I suppose your silly conscience will make you go and apologize to the masher, but that’s a future--a bridge to be crossed when you come to it. Let’s talk about me for a while. I’ve had a jolt, too, to-night.” “A jolt? You don’t look it.” “That’s it; no matter how sick a fellow is, if he doesn’t look sick he gets no sympathy. Just the same, I’m stabbed to the heart. I have been discovered.” Philip’s smile was grim, but it was a smile. “Sheriff after you with a warrant?” he bantered. “Worse. At Mrs. Demming’s to-night I met a man who knows me--knew me back home, I mean.” “Anything fatal about that?” “The fatality lies in what he told me. Have I ever, by any chance, happened to mention the Follansbees to you?” “Not that I remember.” “Friends of the family for three generations. Tom Follansbee was my classmate in college for the little time the powers that were let me stay on the campus. My governor and the Judge were also classmates. You get the idea?--the two families as thick as peas in a pod?” “I’m listening.” “Just a minute and you’ll get the full impact of my jolt. There are two daughters, Eugenia and Lucy Ann. Back in the dark ages, when we were both in frocks and pinafores, the two families settled it that Eugenia and I were to marry when we grew up.” “And when you did grow up you both revolted?”