The father and son entered the room, each heavily preoccupied.  Marshall seated himself and stared moodily into the fire.  Already the judge had found a chair and his glance was fixed on the carpet at his feet.  Presently looking up he asked: 

“Will you be good enough to tell me what that fellow is doing here?”

“Andy?”

The single word came from Langham as with a weary acceptance of his father’s anger.

“Yes, certainly—­Gilmore—­of whom do you imagine me to be speaking?”

“Give a dog a bad name—­”

“He has earned his name.  I had heard something of this but did not credit it!” said the judge.

There was another pause.

“Perhaps you will be good enough to explain how I happen to meet that fellow here?”

The judge regarded his son fixedly.  There had always existed a cordial frankness in their intercourse, for though the judge was a man of few intimacies, family ties meant much to him, and these ties were now all centered in his son.  He had shown infinite patience with Marshall’s turbulent youth; an even greater patience with his dissipated manhood; he believed that in spite of the terrible drafts he was making on his energies, his future would not be lacking in solid and worthy achievement.  In his own case the traditional vice of the Langhams had passed him by.  He was grateful for this, but it had never provoked in him any spirit of self-righteousness; indeed, it had only made him the more tender in his judgment of his son’s lapses.

“Marshall—­” and the tone of anger had quite faded from his voice—­“Marshall, what is that fellow’s hold on you?”

“You would not appreciate Andy’s peculiar virtues even if I were to try to describe them,” said Marshall with a smile of sardonic humor.

“Do you consider him the right sort of a person to bring into your home?”

“It won’t hurt him!” said Marshall.

The judge, with a look on his face that mingled astonishment and injury, sank back in his chair.  He never attempted anything that even faintly suggested flippancy, and he was unappreciative of this tendency in others.

“You have not told me what this fellow’s hold on you is?” he said, after a moment’s silence.

“Oh, he’s done me one or two good turns.”

“You mean in the way of money?”

Marshall nodded.

“Are you in his debt now, may I ask?”

“No,” and Marshall moved restlessly.

“Are you quite frank with me, Marshall?” asked the judge with that rare gentleness of voice and manner that only his son knew.

“Quite.”

“Because it would be better to make every sacrifice and be rid of the obligation.”

Another long pause followed in which there came to the ears of the two men the sound of a noisy waltz that Evelyn was playing.  Again it was the judge who broke the oppressive silence.

“I came here to-night, Marshall, because there is a matter I must discuss with you.  Perhaps you will tell me what you and Gilmore have done with Joe Montgomery?”