It wasn’t quite fair, he felt.  It wasn’t fair to Jim or to Elizabeth.  Particularly to Elizabeth.

Sometimes he looked at Elizabeth with a little prayer in his heart, never articulate, that life would be good to her; that she might keep her illusions and her dreams; that the soundness and wholesomeness of her might keep her from unhappiness.  Sometimes, as she sat reading or sewing, with the light behind her shining through her soft hair, he saw in her a purity that was almost radiant.

He was in arms at once a night or two before Dick had invited Elizabeth to go to the theater when Margaret Wheeler said: 

“The house was gayer when Nina was at home.”

“Yes.  And you were pretty sick of it.  Full of roistering young idiots.  Piano and phonograph going at once, pairs of gigglers in the pantry at the refrigerator, pairs on the stairs and on the verandah, cigar-ashes—­my cigars—­and cigarettes over everything, and more infernal spooning going on than I’ve ever seen in my life.”

He had resumed his newspaper, to put it down almost at once.

“What’s that Sayre boy hanging around for?”

“I think he’s in love with her, Walter.”

“Love?  Any of the Sayre tribe?  Jim Sayre drank himself to death, and this boy is like him.  And Jim Sayre wasn’t faithful to his wife.  This boy is—­well, he’s an heir.  That’s why he was begotten.”

Margaret Wheeler stared at him.

“Why, Walter!” she said.  “He’s a nice boy, and he’s a gentleman.”

“Why?  Because he gets up when you come into the room?  Why in heaven’s name don’t you encourage real men to come here?  There’s Dick Livingstone.  He’s a man.”

Margaret hesitated.

“Walter, have you ever thought there was anything queer about Dick Livingstone’s coming here?”

“Darned good for the town that he did come.”

“But—­nobody ever dreamed that David and Lucy had a nephew.  Then he turns up, and they send him to medical college, and all that.”

“I’ve got some relations I haven’t notified the town I possess,” he said grimly.

“Well, there’s something odd.  I don’t believe Henry Livingstone, the Wyoming brother, ever had a son.”

“What possible foundation have you for a statement like that?”

“Mrs. Cook Morgan’s sister-in-law has been visiting her lately.  She says she knew Henry Livingstone well years ago in the West, and she never heard he was married.  She says positively he was not married.”

“And trust the Morgan woman to spread the good news,” he said with angry sarcasm.  “Well, suppose that’s true?  Suppose Dick is an illegitimate child?  That’s the worst that’s implied, I daresay.  That’s nothing against Dick himself.  I’ll tell the world there’s good blood on the Livingstone side, anyhow.”

“You were very particular about Wallie Sayre’s heredity, Walter.”