"I made no mistake," the other interrupted shortly. "If you refer to my marriage that is the one thing I have never--and shall never regret." "Yet it has been the means of reducing you to your present strait." "Pardon me," retorted the younger man, "want of a profession, and not my marriage, has been the means of my poverty. If I failed in my duty to you as a son remember that you in the first place failed in your duty to me." The grey brows drew together over the high-bridged nose, and the old eyes glared angrily into the young, indignant ones. "I brought you up to the profession of a gentleman," Mr St. John remarked. "If by the `profession of a gentleman' you mean a dependent beggar--a parasite--a less than menial," rejoined the son, "you did. And until I met Jill I was not man enough to feel the degradation of it." "Until you met Jill you were not a fool," snapped his father. "We won't discuss that point further," St. John rejoined; "it is one on which we are never likely to agree. You wanted, your note said, to see Jill. I can't imagine why, but if you still wish to see her we will go upstairs at once." Mr St. John having intimated that a two minutes' uncomfortable conversation with his son had not altered his intention in coming, the latter turned impatiently upon his heel and led the way to the sitting-room where Jill was waiting with her little boy, striving, in her efforts to amuse him, to stifle her own nervousness and vague misgivings. The child was simply and daintily dressed in white, and had grown from a puny infant into a sturdy, healthy little man, with more than an ordinary share of good looks and good spirits, and a very charming and lovable disposition. Jill idolised him, but she was wise in her love, and the spoiling--if spoiling it could be called--was of a very judicious kind, tending chiefly to bring out the best qualities in the impressionable baby-nature, so that surrounded, as this baby was, with love and care and tenderness, he bade fair to turn out a generous, affectionate, happy little fellow; and if he were not as well off as some babies, at least he had been born without the silver spoon, and so was not likely to feel the deprivation.