“However,” said Ben, “there is no use in arguing about our differences.  The point is we are agreed that this marriage ought not to be.  Let us co-operate on that.  Where could I find David?  I believe if I could see him I’d have some effect on him.”

“You mean you could talk him out of marrying the girl he loves?”

“I might make him see the folly of it.”

“Well, I haven’t said anything as bad about your brother as that, Mr. Moreton.  But you do him injustice.  You couldn’t talk him out of it, and if you could, she’d talk him right back into it again.  But there is one thing to consider.  I understand you make him an allowance.  How about stopping that?”

“I wouldn’t consider that for a moment,” said Ben, with more temper than he had so far shown.  “I don’t make him that allowance so that I can force him to do what I think best.  I give it to him because he needs it.  I don’t believe in force, Mr. Cord.”

“Oh yes, you do, Mr. Moreton.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were proposing to use a much more pernicious kind of force when you proposed talking the boy out of his first love.  However, to be candid with you, I must tell you that the issue is dead.  They ran off yesterday and were married in Boston.”

There was a short silence and then Ben moved toward the door.

“Won’t you stay to lunch?” said Mr. Cord, politely.

“Thank you, no,” said Ben.  He wanted to be alone.  Like all dominating people who don’t get their own way in an altruistic issue, his feelings were deeply wounded.  He took his hat from the disapproving Tomes, and went out to the sea to think.  He supposed he was going to think about David’s future and the terrible blow his paper had just received.

As the door closed behind him, Eddie turned to Mr. Cord with a world of reproach in his eyes.

“Well,” he said, “I must say, sir, I think you were unnecessarily gentle with that fellow.”

“Seemed to me a fine young fellow,” said Mr. Cord.

“Asking him to lunch,” said Eddie.

“I did that for Crystal,” replied Cord, getting up and slapping his pockets—­a gesture which in some subconscious way he hoped would make Eddie go home.  “She’s always so keen to meet new people.  If she heard that the editor of Liberty had been here while she was asleep and that I had not tried to keep him for her to see—­whew!—­she would make a scene.”

“But she oughtn’t to see people like that,” protested Eddie, as if he were trying to talk sense in a madhouse.  “That was what I was just explaining to you, Mr. Cord, when—­”

“So you were, Eddie, so you were,” said Mr. Cord.  “Stay to lunch and tell Crystal.  Or, rather,” he added, hastily glancing at the clock, “come back to lunch in an hour.  I have to go now and see—­” Mr. Cord hesitated for the fraction of a second—­“the gardener.  If you don’t see gardeners now and then and let them scold you about the weather and the Lord’s arrangement of the seasons, they go mad and beat their wives.  See you later, Eddie,” and Mr. Cord stepped out through the French window.  It was only great crises like these that led him to offer himself up to the attacks of his employees.