“Oh, Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Cox,” said Ben, gravely, and she went out again.

[Illustration:  “Mr. Moreton, the Newport boat leaves at five-thirty”]

“It would be a terrible thing for Dave to make a marriage like that,” Klein went on as soon as she had gone, “getting mixed up with those fellows.  And it would be bad for you, Ben—­”

“I don’t mean to get mixed up with them,” said Ben.

“No, I mean having Dave do it.  It would kill the paper; it would endanger your whole position; and as for leadership, you could never hope—­”

“Now, look here, Leo.  You don’t think I can stop my brother’s marrying because it might be a poor connection for me?  The point is that it wouldn’t be good for Dave—­to be a poorly tolerated hanger-on.  That’s why I’m going hot-foot to Newport.  And while I’m away do try to do something about the book page.  Get me a culture-hound—­get one of these Pater specialists from Harvard.  Or,” he added, with sudden inspiration when his hand was already on the door, “get a woman—­she’d have a sense of beauty and would know how to jolly Green into agreeing with her.”  And with this the editor was gone.

It was the end of one of those burning weeks in August that New York often knows.  The sun went down as red as blood every evening behind the Palisades, and before the streets and roofs had ceased to radiate heat the sun was up again above Long Island Sound, as hot and red as ever.  As Ben went uptown in the Sixth Avenue Elevated he could see pale children hanging over the railings of fire escapes, and behind them catch glimpses of dark, crowded rooms which had all the disadvantages of caves without the coolness.  But to-day he was too concentrated on his own problem to notice.

Since Ben’s sixteenth year his brother David had been dependent on him.  Their father had been professor of economics in a college in that part of the United States which Easterners describe as the “Middle West.”  In the gay days when muck-raking was at its height Professor Moreton had lost his chair because he had denounced in his lecture room financial operations which to-day would be against the law.  At that time they were well thought of, and even practiced by the eminent philanthropist who had endowed the very chair which Moreton occupied.  The trustees felt that it was unkind and unnecessary to complicate their already difficult duties by such tactlessness, and their hearts began to turn against Moreton, as most of our hearts turn against those who make life too hard for us.  Before long they asked him to resign on account of his age—­he was just sixty and extremely vigorous; but immediately afterward, having been deeply surprised and hurt, he did what Goldsmith recommends to lovely woman under not dissimilar circumstances—­he died.  He left his two young sons—­he had married late in life—­absolutely unprovided for.