“Exactly,” said Whitney, a gleam of enjoyment in his dull eyes.

In fact, ever since Hiram’s death his colossal figure had often dominated the thoughts of Charles and Matilda Whitney.  The will had set Charles to observing, to seeing; it had set Matilda to speculating on the possibilities of her own husband’s stealthy relentlessness.  At these definite, dreadful words of his, her vague alarms burst into a deafening chorus, jangling and clanging in her very ears.

“Arthur Ranger,” continued Whitney, languid and absent, “has got out of the beaten track of business—­”

“Yes; look at Hiram’s children!” urged Matilda.  “Everybody that is anybody is down on Arthur.  See what his wife has brought him to, with her crazy, upsetting ideas!  They tell me a good many of the best people in Saint X hardly speak to him.  Yes, Charles, look at Hiram’s doings.”

“Thanks to Hiram—­what he inherited from Hiram and what Hiram had the good sense not to let him inherit—­he has become a somebody.  He’s doing things, and the fact that they aren’t just the kind of things I like doesn’t make me fool enough to underestimate them or him.  Success is the test, and in his line he’s a success.”

“If it hadn’t been for his wife he’d not have done much,” said Matilda sourly.

“You’ve lived long enough, I’d think, to have learned not to say such shallow things,” drawled he.  “Of course, he has learned from her—­don’t everybody have to learn somewhere?  Where a man learns is nothing; the important thing is his capacity to learn.  If a man’s got the capacity to learn, he’ll learn, he’ll become somebody.  If he hasn’t, then no man nor no woman can teach him.  No, my dear, you may be sure that anybody who amounts to anything has got it in himself.  And Arthur Ranger is a credit to any father.  He’s becoming famous—­the papers are full of what he’s accomplishing.  And he’s respected, honest, able, with a wife that loves him.  Would he have been anybody if his father had left him the money that would have compelled him to be a fool?  As for the girl, she’s got a showy streak in her—­she’s your regular American woman of nowadays—­the kind of daughter your sort of mother and my sort of damn-fool father breed up.  But Del’s mother wasn’t like you, Mattie, and she hadn’t a fool father like me, so she’s married to a young fellow that’s already doing big things, in his line—­and a good line his is, a better line than trimming dollars and donkeys.  Our Jenny—­Jane that used to be—­We’ve sold her to a Frenchman, and she’s sold herself to the devil.  Hiram’s daughter—­God forgive us, Matilda, for what we’ve done to Janet.”  All this, including that last devout appeal, in the manner of a spectator of a scene at which he is taking a last, indifferent, backward glance as he is leaving.

His wife’s brain was too busy making plans and tearing them up to follow his monotonous garrulity except in a general way.  He waited in vain for her to defend her daughter and herself.