"I doubt it, Droom. Ancestors have stories, too, and they hide them."
"Well, she isn't the only girl who doesn't know."
"I dare say. It isn't a wise world."
"It's a lucky one. That's why it assumes to be decent."
"You are quite a cynic, Elias."
"By the way, now that your son is to marry her, I'd like to know just what your game is."
Bansemer turned on him like a tiger, his steely eyes blazing.
"Game? There is no game, damn you. Listen to me, Droom; we'll settle this now. I'm a bad man, but I've tried to be a good father. People have called me heartless. So be it. But I love that boy of mine. What little heart I have belongs to him. There can be no game where he is concerned. Some day, perhaps, he'll find out the kind of a man I've been to others, but can always remember that I was fair and honest with him. He'll despise my methods and he'll spurn my money, but he'll have to love me. Jane Cable is not the girl I would have chosen for him, but she is good and true and he loves her."
For the first time in his life Elias Droom shrank beneath the eyes of his master. He hated James Bansemer from the bottom, of his wretched soul, but he could not but feel, at this moment, a touch of admiration.
Through all the years of their association Elias Droom had hated Bansemer because he was qualified to be the master, because he was successful and forceful, because he had loved and been loved, because they had been classmates but not equals. In the bitterness of his heart he had lain awake on countless nights praying—but not to his God—that the time would come when he could stand ascendant over this steely master. Only his unswerving loyalty to a duty once assumed kept him from crushing Bansemer with exposure years before. But Droom was not a traitor. He remained standing, lifting his eyes after a brief, shifting study of his bony hands.