Jack stood and watched the flaming will flicker down to a glowing ash.  One bandaged hand slowly smoothed his blond hair.

“Gee!  I’ve seen people burning up money, and I’ve burnt up quite a bit myself, but I never saw two millions go as quick!  Well, mother,” he sighed, shaking his head, “I never suspected I’d end in such a little blaze.  With such a pile I could have made a bigger bonfire than that.”

CHAPTER IV

A SLIGHT PREDICAMENT

For several moments after Jack had withdrawn, Mrs. De Peyster stood in majestic silence beside the mantelpiece.

“We will forget this incident, Judge Harvey,” she said at length.  “Be seated, if you please.”

Judge Harvey took a chair, as ordered.  Out in the world, Judge Harvey was a disconcerting personality, though a respected one; a judge who had resigned his judgeship, with the bold announcement that law-courts were in the main theaters for farces; a thinker who rejected all labels, who was daring enough to perceive and applaud what was good even in the conventional.

“But, Caroline,” he began hesitantly, “weren’t you perhaps a little too stern with Jack?”

“As I said, Judge Harvey, I do not care to explain the situation.”

“I understood it—­a little—­anyhow.  See here, you don’t want Jack to grow up to be a member of that geranium-cheeked, leather-chair brigade that stare out of Fifth Avenue Club windows, their heaviest labor lifting a whiskey-and-soda all the way up to their mouths?”

“I certainly do not propose to accept the alternative he proposed!” she retorted.  “I assure you, such severity as I used was necessary.  Nothing will bring a young man to his senses so quickly and so surely as having his resources cut off.”  Her composure, her confidence in her judgment, were now fully returned.  “Jack will come around all right.  What I did was imperative to save myself; and certainly it was best for him.”

“I trust so.  But I hope you don’t mind if I’m a bit sorry for the boy, for, you know,”—­in a lower voice, and with a stealthy look at her,—­“Jack’s the nearest thing to a son I’ve ever had.”

She did not answer.  In the silence that ensued an uneasiness crept into his manner.

“Caroline,” bracing himself, “there is something—­something you were perhaps not expecting to hear—­that I must tell you.”

“I trust, Judge Harvey,”—­somewhat stiffly,—­“that you are not about to propose to me again.”

“I am not.”  His face flushed; then set grimly.  “But I’m going to again, sometime, and I’d do it now if I thought it would do any good.”

“It will not.”

“Oh, I know I wouldn’t fit into your present scheme of life.”  Bitterness and contempt had risen like a tide in the Judge’s voice.  “I know I’m no social figure; at least, not up to your dimensions.  I know it would be a come-down to change from Mrs. De Peyster to Mrs. Harvey.  Not that I’m so infernally humble, Caroline, that I don’t consider myself a damned lot better than most of the men you might possibly think about marrying.”