“Why didn’t somebody try it before?” asked the Honourable Hilary.

“See here, Judge, I wish you’d let me out of an argument about it.  Suit is going to be brought, whether I bring it or another man.  If you would prefer for any reason that I shouldn’t bring it—­I won’t.  I’d much rather resign as counsel for the Gaylords—­and I am prepared to do so.”

“Bring suit,” answered the Honourable Hilary, quickly, “bring suit by all means.  And now’s your time.  This seems to be a popular season for attacking the property which is the foundation of the State’s prosperity.” ("Book of Arguments,” chapter 3.)

In spite of himself, Austen smiled again.  Long habit had accustomed Hilary Vane to put business considerations before family ties; and this habit had been the secret of his particular success.  And now, rather than admit by the least sign the importance of his son’s discovery of the statute (which he had had in mind for many years, and to which he had more than once, by the way, called Mr. Flint’s attention), the Honourable Hilary deliberately belittled the matter as part and parcel of the political tactics against the Northeastern.

Sears caused by differences of opinion are soon healed; words count for nothing, and it is the soul that attracts or repels.  Mr. Vane was not analytical, he had been through a harassing day, and he was unaware that it was not Austen’s opposition, but Austen’s smile, which set the torch to his anger.  Once, shortly after his marriage, when he had come home in wrath after a protracted quarrel with Mr. Tredway over the orthodoxy of the new minister, in the middle of his indignant recital of Mr. Tredway’s unwarranted attitude, Sarah Austen had smiled.  The smile had had in it, to be sure, nothing of conscious superiority, but it had been utterly inexplicable to Hilary Vane.  He had known for the first time what it was to feel murder in the heart, and if he had not rushed out of the room, he was sure he would have strangled her.  After all, the Hilary Vanes of this world cannot reasonably be expected to perceive the humour in their endeavours.

Now the son’s smile seemed the reincarnation of the mother’s.  That smile was in itself a refutation of motive on Austen’s part which no words could have made more emphatic; it had in it (unconsciously, too) compassion for and understanding of the Honourable Hilary’s mood and limitations.  Out of the corner of his mental vision—­without grasping it—­the Honourable Hilary perceived this vaguely.  It was the smile in which a parent privately indulges when a child kicks his toy locomotive because its mechanism is broken.  It was the smile of one who, unforgetful of the scheme of the firmament and the spinning planets, will not be moved to anger by him who sees but the four sides of a pit.

Hilary Vane grew red around the eyes—­a danger signal of the old days.