"Don't you want me to see her again?"
"It's wiser not to. No good can come of it—perhaps a great deal of harm."
"She would not understand—she knows I dislike her husband, but it seems to me I ought to tell her——"
"That you're making financial war upon her husband? Forewarn him—forearm him? What else would you say. That doesn't seem fair to me, does it?"
He paused, watching his son narrowly and yet with a kind of stealthy pity. Cortland's struggle cost him something.
"I suppose you're right," he said at last. And then, turning around toward his father, "I will not see her again. Give me the work, sir, and I'll do my best. Perhaps I haven't always tried to do that. I will, though, if you give me the chance."
"Your hand on it, Cort. I won't forget this. I'm glad you spoke to me. It hasn't always been our custom to exchange confidences, but I'll give you more of mine if you'll let me. I'm getting old. More and more I feel the need of younger shoulders to lean on. I'm not all a business document, but the habit of mercilessness grows on one downtown. Mercy has no place in business, and it's the merciful man that goes to the wall. But I have another side. There's a tender chord left in me somewhere. You've struck it to-night, and there's a kind of sweetness in the pain of it, Cort. It's rusty and out of use, but it can still sing a little."
Cortland laid his hand on the old man's shoulder almost timidly, as he might have done to a stranger.
"You'll forgive me, father——?"
"Oh, that"—and he took his son's hand—"I honor you for that, my son. She was the woman you loved. You could not hear her badly spoken of. Perhaps if I had known my duty—I should have guessed. Say nothing more. You're ready to take my instructions?"