Perhaps he was more than a little morbid. Men are apt to be so, when harassed overlong by care. And perhaps he made a mistake, shunning his friends and seeking an anodyne only in a wearying routine. That afternoon the subject of the noon hour's chat came into David's quarters to ask a question about some drawings. The errand accomplished, he, too, lingered. He refused the chair David vacated and sat on the table. "I heard you and Miss Summers talking a while ago," he said abruptly. "You said you heard--" David looked up, self-conscious. "I heard you laughing." Radbourne's eyes twinkled keenly down on his draftsman. "So you were talking about me?" "There was nothing you couldn't have heard--without offense, sir." "I know that. Miss Summers is a loyal friend." "I hope the same can be said of me, sir." "Would you mind," Jonathan asked, "not sirring me like that? That's a very fine young lady, Mr. Quentin." "Evidently," said David, though with something less than his employer's enthusiasm. "An inspiration to any man," Jonathan continued. "I have no doubt." Jonathan smiled. "Meaning you do doubt it? But I forgot--you probably don't know. She had a disappointment, Mr. Quentin, a heavy one, and she bore it as--as you and I would have been proud to. She had a voice. And just as she was beginning to make her living out of it and getting ready for bigger things, she took diphtheria. It left her throat so weak that she had to give up singing, altogether for a while, professionally for good." "Why, that was too bad!" "It was very bad. But she didn't whine. Just put it behind her. Since she had to make her own living somehow, she went to a commercial school and studied bookkeeping. I was lucky enough to get her." "She could really sing?" "She would have gone far, very far. I had happened to hear her and I followed her progress closely enough to know. I have never been reconciled--" Jonathan broke off sharply, staring hard at a crack in the wall. The little blue eyes were very sad. David, too, fell into a long thoughtful silence. He broke it at last. "As you say--" Jonathan started, as if he had forgotten David's presence. "As you say, it called for more courage, because she was a real artist and not a proven failure." "But I didn't say that." "You had it in mind when you told me that. You are quite right. Thank you for telling me." "There!" Jonathan beamed happily. "I said she was an inspiration to any man." "At least," said David grimly, "she is a good example." Jonathan left. But in a moment he returned. "Do you like music?" "Very much." "Then one of these evenings we'll go out to my house, we three, and have some, if you'd care for it." "I should be glad to." "Next Saturday, perhaps?" David repeated his polite formula.