The younger man--he was only a boy--grinned impishly at the elder, bringing out the two dimples in his flushed, girlish cheeks. "That's all right enough, Dill," he drawled; he always drawled when he had been drinking. When he was sober the familiar Huntington staccato was very marked in him. "That's all right, Dilly, my boy, and a grand truth, as old Jim used to tell us at chapel, but maybe little Robert doesn't see your game? Oh, yes, he sees it, fast enough. Sis hands it out to you, and you recite it to Robbie, and Robbie reforms, and you get Sis! How's that for a young fellow who flunks his math? Not bad, eh?" Dillon flushed and set his teeth, mastering an almost irresistible longing to slap those red cheeks in vicious alternation. To think that this chattering young idiot stood between him and his heart's desire! Bob drawled on: "Anyhow, Dill, I think it's right queer, you know. Why don't she marry you? She can't love you very much, if it depends on me. You're a man o' the world, you know, man o' world"--he grew absent-minded and stared at the wall. Dillon snapped his fingers nervously, and the speaker began again with a start: "That's what I say--a man o' world. Tell her it's all bosh worryin' over me, tell her that, Dill, tell her I say so. No use her tryin' to be my mother. Now is there, Dill, as a man, is there? If she got married and had some children of her own----" "Bob," the older man burst out, "for heaven's sake, shut up, will you, and listen to me! I'm going to tell you the truth. You've got the whole thing in your hands--God knows why, but you have--and I'm going to lay it before you once for all. Then do as you please: make us all happy, or go to the devil your own way--and I'll go mine," he added, lower and quicker. Bob sat up, blinked rapidly, and smoothed his hair down tight over his ears--sure sign that he was nearly himself. "Go ahead," he said shortly, "I'll come in." Dillon bit his lip a moment; he would rather have taken a whipping than say what he had to say. The clock ticked loud in the pause, and Bob, every moment clearer-eyed, heavy sleep a thing of the past, stared at him disconcertingly. "What I'm going to say to you," Dillon began, "isn't very often said by one man to another, I imagine. Few men are placed in just my position. I've known you all so well, I've seen so much of you all my life----" he paused. "I needn't say how much I thought of your mother. When your father was--when he broke down so often at the last, of course I saw a great deal of her, and she trusted me a lot--she had to, once she began. When she died, and you weren't there, because you----" "Don't! please don't, Dill!" the boy's lips contracted; his slim body twisted with a helpless remorse.