The doctor, very red, stared at him.

“By jinks!” he said, “I guess I’m one after all.  Now, who in hell would suspect that!—­after all the advice I’ve given you!”

“It was another fellow’s family, that’s all,” said Neville wearily.  “Theories work or they don’t; only few care to try them on themselves or their own families—­particularly when they devoutly believe in them.”

“Gad!  That’s a stinger!  You’ve got me going all right,” said the doctor, wincing, “and you’re perfectly correct.  Here I’ve been practically counselling you to marry where your inclination led you, and let the rest go to blazes; and when it’s a question of Sam doing something similar, I retire hastily across the river and establish a residence in Missouri.  What a rotten, custom-ridden bunch of snippy-snappy-snobbery we are after all!...  All the same—­who is the Countess?”

Neville didn’t know much about her.

“Sam’s such an ass,” said his brother, “and it isn’t all snobbery on my part.”

“The safest thing to do,” said Neville bitterly, “is to let a man in love alone.”

“Right.  Foolish—­damned foolish—­but right!  There is no greater ass than a wise one.  Those who don’t know anything at all are the better asses—­and the happier.”

And he went away down the stairs, muttering and gesticulating.

Mrs. Neville came to the door as he opened it to go out.  They talked in low voices for a few moments, then the doctor went out and Mrs. Neville called to Stephanie.

The girl came from the lighted drawing-room, and, together, the two women ascended the stairs.

Stephanie smiled and nodded to Neville, then continued on along the hall; but his mother stopped to speak to him.

“Go and sit with your father a little while,” she said.  “And don’t be impatient with him, dear.  He is an old man—­a product of a different age and a simpler civilisation—­perhaps a narrower one.  Be patient and gentle with him.  He really is fond of you and proud of you.”

“Very well, mother....  Is anybody going to sit up with Valerie?”

“Stephanie insists on sleeping on the couch at the foot of her bed.  I offered to sit up but she wouldn’t let me....  You’ll see that I’m called if anything happens, won’t you?”

“Yes.  Good-night, mother.”

He kissed her, stood a moment looking at the closed door behind which lay Valerie—­tried to realise that she did lie there under the same roof-tree that sheltered father, mother, and sister—­then, with a strange thrill in his heart, he went downstairs.

Cameron passed him, on his upward way to slumberland.

“How’s Miss West?” he asked cheerfully.

“Asleep, I think.  Billy Ogilvy expects her to be all right in the morning.”

“Good work!  Glad of it.  Tell your governor; he’s been inquiring.”

“Has he?” said Neville, with another thrill, and went into the living room where his father sat alone before the whitening ashes of the fire.