Neither spoke again; and after a moment Selwyn's eyes fell, he turned heavily on his heel and walked away, head bent, gray eyes narrowing to slits. Yet, through the brain's chaos and the heart's loud tumult and the clamour of pulses run wild at the insult flung into his very face, the grim instinct to go on persisted. And he went on, and on, for _her_ sake--on--he knew not how--until he came to Neergard's apartment in one of the vast West-Side constructions, bearing the name of a sovereign state; and here, after an interval, he followed his card to Neergard's splendid suite, where a man-servant received him and left him seated by a sunny window overlooking the blossoming foliage of the Park. When Neergard came in, and stood on the farther side of a big oak table, Selwyn rose, returning the cool, curt nod. "Mr. Neergard," he said, "it is not easy for me to come here after what I said to you when I severed my connection with your firm. You have every reason to be unfriendly toward me; but I came on the chance that whatever resentment you may feel will not prevent you from hearing me out." "Personal resentment," said Neergard slowly, "never interferes with my business. I take it, of course, that you have called upon a business matter. Will you sit down?" "Thank you; I have only a moment. And what I am here for is to ask you, as Mr. Erroll's friend, to use your influence on Mr. Erroll--every atom of your influence--to prevent him from ruining himself financially through his excesses. I ask you, for his family's sake, to discountenance any more gambling; to hold him strictly to his duties in your office, to overlook no more shortcomings of his, but to demand from him what any trained business man demands of his associates as well as of his employees. I ask this for the boy's sake." Neergard's close-set eyes focussed a trifle closer to Selwyn's, yet did not meet them. "Mr. Selwyn," he said, "have you come here to criticise the conduct of my business?" "Criticise! No, I have not. I merely ask you--" "You are merely asking me," cut in Neergard, "to run my office, my clerks, and my associate in business after some theory of your own." Selwyn looked at the man and knew he had lost; yet he forced himself to go on: "The boy regards you as his friend. Could you not, as his friend, discourage his increasing tendency toward dissipation--" "I am not aware that he is dissipated." "What!" "I say that I am not aware that Gerald requires any interference from me--or from you, either," said Neergard coolly. "And as far as that goes, I and my business require no interference either. And I believe that settles it." He touched a button; the man-servant appeared to usher Selwyn out. The latter set his teeth in his under lip and looked straight and hard at Neergard, but Neergard thrust both hands in his pockets, turned squarely on his heel, and sauntered out of the room, yawning as he went.