"We are to say nothing more about it for a year--just to wait and see. You see we all grew up together, and she had never thought of us in that way, and it upset everything----"
"I think I understand. Now, my dear boy, will you take it from an old man, who has seen more of the world than perhaps has been good for him, that there is not the slightest ground for your feeling as you do. I knew your father very intimately. We had many failings in common. He behaved as we most of us behaved in those days--according to our lights, or shadows, and in accord with the times in which we lived. I cannot exonerate him any more than the rest of you. Still, do not think too harshly of him! He was the product of his age. Now, what valid grounds have you for believing your brother to be in any way better circumstanced than yourself?"
"He's so much the better man, sir. Jack's got a head on him and will----"
"If you applied that to the peerage generally, I'm afraid you would bar many escutcheons," said the old man, with a smile. "Brains by no means always follow the direct lines of descent. In fact, as you ought to know, a cross strain frequently produces a finer result. From that point of view you may set your mind at ease. As to how the matter is to be settled eventually, that is beyond me. Time works out his own strange solutions of difficulties. I'm afraid you'll have to leave it to him. Then, again, you are both going into this war. If only one of you should come back----"
"Yes, that would settle it. I have been looking to that as the only settlement," said Jim solemnly.
"Meaning that Jack would most likely come back, and that you would most likely not."
"I think that would be the best settlement, sir. The better man should get the prizes, and there can be no question which is the better of us two."
"Jim, my boy,"--and the long thin white hand came down gently on the boy's strong brown one, and rested on it impressively--"there are better things in this world even than brains. Clean hearts, clean consciences, clean lives----"
"Jack has all those, sir."
"And so have you, and they are worth more than all the brains in the world in some people's eyes. Did brains ever win a girl's heart?--or any one else's?"