“Glad to know it; wouldn’t like to think you were mixed up in the swindle.  You ought to thank your stars, my dear fellow, that you got into architecture instead of into Wall—­”

“But I am in—­”

“Yes, I know—­you’re with Hunt—­” (another instance of a defective memory) “and you couldn’t be with a better man—­the best in the profession, really.  I’m talking of some scoundrels of your name—­ Breen & Co., the firm is—­who, I hear, have cheated one of my clients—­young Gilbert—­fine fellow—­just married—­persuaded him to buy some gold stock—­Mukton Lode, I think they called it—­and robbed him of all he has.  He must stop on his house I hear.  And now, my dear Miss—­” here he turned to the young girl—­“I really forget—­”

“Ruth,” she answered with a smile.  She had taken Morris’s measure and had already begun to like him as much as Jack did.

“Yes—­Miss Ruth—­Now, please, my dear girl, keep on being young and very beautiful and very wholesome, for you are every one of these things, and I know you’ll forgive me for saying so when I tell you that I have two strapping young fellows for sons who are almost old enough to make love to you.  Come, Peter, show me that copy of Tacitus you wrote me about.  Is it in good condition?” They were out of Jack’s hearing now, Morris adding, “Fine type of Southern beauty, Peter.  Big design, with broad lines everywhere.  Good, too—­good as gold.  Something about her forehead that reminds me of the Italian school.  Looks as if Bellini might have loved her.  Hello, Major!  What are you doing here all by yourself?”

Jack stood transfixed!

Horror, anger, humiliation over the exposure (it was unheard, if he had but known it, by anyone in the room except Peter and himself) rushed over him in hot concurrent waves.  It was his uncle, then, who had robbed young Gilbert!  The Mukton Lode!  He had handled dozens of the certificates, just as he had handled dozens of others, hardly glancing at the names.  He remembered overhearing some talk one day in which his uncle had taken part.  Only a few days before he had sent a bundle of Mukton certificates to the transfer office of the company.

Then a chill struck him full in the chest and he shivered to his finger-tips.  Had Ruth heard?—­and if she had heard, would she understand?  In his talk he had given her his true self—­his standards of honor—­his beliefs in what was true and worth having.  When she knew all—­and she must know—­would she look upon him as a fraud?  That his uncle had been accused of a shrewd scoop in the Street did not make his clerk a thief, but would she see the difference?