and the rungs of the ladder he was climbing more slippery than they had looked from below.  He was not without the reassuring sense of having made himself, in certain small ways, necessary to Mr. Spence; and this conviction was confirmed by Draper’s reiterated assurance of his father’s appreciation.  But Millner had begun to suspect that one might be necessary to Mr. Spence one day, and a superfluity, if not an obstacle, the next; and that it would take superhuman astuteness to foresee how and when the change would occur.  Every fluctuation of the great man’s mood was therefore anxiously noted by the young meteorologist in his service; and this observer’s vigilance was now strained to the utmost by the little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, adumbrated by the banker’s unpunctuality.

When Mr. Spence finally appeared, his aspect did not tend to dissipate the cloud.  He wore what Millner had learned to call his “back-door face”:  a blank barred countenance, in which only an occasional twitch of the lids behind his glasses suggested that some one was on the watch.  In this mood Mr. Spence usually seemed unconscious of his secretary’s presence, or aware of it only as an arm terminating in a pen.  Millner, accustomed on such occasions to exist merely as a function, sat waiting for the click of the spring that should set him in action; but the pressure not being applied, he finally hazarded:  “Are we to go on with the Investigator, sir?”

Mr. Spence, who had been pacing up and down between the desk and the fireplace, threw himself into his usual seat at Millner’s elbow.

“I don’t understand this new notion of Draper’s,” he said abruptly.  “Where’s he got it from?  No one ever learned irreligion in my household.”

He turned his eyes on Millner, who had the sense of being scrutinized through a ground-glass window which left him visible while it concealed his observer.  The young man let his pen describe two or three vague patterns on the blank sheet before him.

“Draper has ideas—­” he risked at last.

Mr. Spence looked hard at him.  “That’s all right,” he said.  “I want my son to have everything.  But what’s the point of mixing up ideas and principles?  I’ve seen fellows who did that, and they were generally trying to borrow five dollars to get away from the sheriff.  What’s all this talk about goodness?  Goodness isn’t an idea.  It’s a fact.  It’s as solid as a business proposition.  And it’s Draper’s duty, as the son of a wealthy man, and the prospective steward of a great fortune, to elevate the standards of other young men—­of young men who haven’t had his opportunities.  The rich ought to preach contentment, and to set the example themselves.  We have our cares, but we ought to conceal them.  We ought to be cheerful, and accept things as they are—­not go about sowing dissent and restlessness.  What has Draper got to give these boys in his Bible Class, that’s so much better than what he wants to take from them?  That’s the question I’d like to have answered?”