“Cane? What cane?”
“Your stick, sir; didn’t you have a stick?”
“What for? Have you rattlers here? Oh, I see—more dignity. No, I don’t carry a stick. Perhaps when I’m old—”
“You’ll have to try and accommodate yourself to our manners,” said Jones, when Murdoch had left the room. “They may seem unnecessary, or even absurd, but they are sanctioned by custom, and, you know, civilization is built on custom. The poet speaks of a freedom which ‘slowly broadens down from precedent to precedent.’ Precedent is custom. Never defy custom, or you will find her your master. Humor her, and she will be your slave. Now I think I shall leave, while you try and tune yourself to the atmosphere of these surroundings. I need hardly warn you that the furniture is—quite valuable.”
Grant saw him out with a friendly grip on his arm. “You will need another course of wrestling lessons presently,” he warned him.
So this was the room which had been the inner shrine of the firm of Grant & Son. The quarters were new since he had left the East; the furnishings revealed that large simplicity which is elegance and wealth. A painting of the elder Grant hung from the wall; Dennison stood before it, looking into the sad, capable, grey eyes. What had life brought to his father that was worth the price those eyes reflected? Dennison found his own eyes moistening with memories now strangely poignant....
“Environment,” the young man murmured, as he turned from the portrait, “environment, master of everything! And yet—”
A photograph of Roy stood on the mantelpiece, and beside it, in a little silver frame, was one of his mother.... Grant pulled himself together and fell to an examination of the papers in his father’s desk.