“But is there anything so bad about that?” she asked.  “I am sure it is no more than natural.  My uncle Louis used to write for the Salem Monitor.”

He looked at her—­he did not say a word, but he looked at her.

“And Uncle Harvey”—­

He grunted, flounced out of his chair and quitted the room.

“Mother,” said Henry, getting up and taking her hand, “I am grieved that this dispute arose.  I know that he is set in his ways, and it is unfortunate that I was compelled to cross him, but it had to come sooner or later.”

“I am very sorry, but I don’t blame you, my son.  If you don’t want to go into the store, why should you?”

They heard Witherspoon’s jolting walk, up and down the hall.

“You have but one life here on this earth,” she said, “and I don’t see why you should make that one life miserable by engaging in something that is distasteful to you.  But if your father has a fault it is that he believes every one should think as he does.  Don’t say anything more to him to-night.”

When Henry went out Witherspoon was still walking up and down the hall.  They passed, but took not the slightest notice of each other.  How different from the night before.  Henry lay awake, thinking of the dead boy, and pictured his eternal sleeping-place, hard by the stormy sea.

CHAPTER X.

Romped with the girl.

The morning was heavy and almost breathless.  The smoke of the city hung low in the streets.  Henry had passed through a dreamful and uneasy sleep.  He thought it wise to remain in his room until the merchant was gone down town, and troublously he had begun to doze again when Ellen’s voice aroused him.  “Come on down!” she cried, tapping on the door.  “You just ought to see what the newspapers have said about you.  Everybody in the neighborhood is staring at us.  Come on down.”

Witherspoon was sitting on a sofa with a pile of newspapers beside him.  He looked up as Henry entered, and in the expression of his face there was no displeasure to recall the controversy of the night before.

“Well, sir,” said he, “they have given you a broad spread.”

The reporters had done their work well.  It was a great sensation.  Henry was variously described.  One report said that he had a dreaminess of eye that was not characteristic of this strong, pragmatic family; another declared him to be “tall, rather handsome, black-bearded, and with the quiet sense of humor that belongs to the temperament of a modest man.”  One reporter had noticed that his Southern-cut clothes did not fit him.

“He might have said something nicer than that,” Ellen remarked, with a natural protest against this undue familiarity.

“I don’t know why we should be spoken of as a pragmatic family,” said Mrs. Witherspoon.  “Of course your father has always been in business, but I don’t see”—­