The old man looked at him with the sincere and most flattering tribute of compelled admiration.  “What a mind you’ve got, Frederick—­and what courage!”

“You accept my terms?”

“If the others agree—­and I think they will.”

“They will,” said Norman.

The old man was regarding him with eyes that had genuine anxiety in them.  “Why do you do it, Fred?” he said.

“Because I wish to be free,” replied Norman.  He would never have told the full truth to that incredulous old cynic of a time-server—­the truth that he was resigning at the dictation of a pride which forbade him to involve others in the ruin he, in his madness, was bent upon.

“I don’t mean, why do you resign,” said Lockyer.  “I mean the other—­the—­woman.”

Norman laughed harshly.

“I’ve seen too much of the world not to understand,” continued Lockyer.  “The measureless power of woman over man—­especially—­pardon me, my dear Norman—­especially a bad woman!”

“The measureless power of a man’s imagination over himself,” rejoined Norman.  “Did you ever see or hear of a man without imagination being upset by a woman?  It’s in here, Mr. Lockyer”—­he rapped his forehead—­“altogether in here.”

“You realize that.  Yet you go on—­and for such a—­pardon me, my boy, for saying it—­for such a trifling object.”

“What does ‘trifling’ mean, sir?” replied the young man.  “What is trifling and what is important?  It depends upon the point of view.  What I want—­that is vital.  What I do not want—­that is paltry.  It’s my nature to go for what I happen to want—­to go for it with all there is in me.  I will take nothing else—­nothing else.”

There was in his eyes the glitter called insanity—­the glitter that reflects the state of mind of any strong man when possessed of one of those fixed ideas that are the idiosyncrasy of the strong.  It would have been impossible for Lockyer to be possessed in that way; he had not the courage nor the concentration nor the independence of soul; like most men, even able men, he dealt only in the conventional.  Not in his wildest youth could he have wrecked or injured himself for a woman; women, for him, occupied their conventional place in the scheme of things, and had no allure beyond the conventionally proper and the conventionally improper—­for, be it remembered, vice has its beaten track no less than virtue and most of the vicious are as tame and unimaginative as the plodders in the high roads of propriety.  Still, Lockyer had associated with strong men, men of boundless desires; thus, he could in a measure sympathize with his young associate.  What a pity that these splendid powers should be perverted from the ordinary desires of strong men!

Norman rose, to end the interview.  “My address is my house.  They will forward—­if I go away.”