“Take the suit,” he said.  “If you don’t, I’ll make it known all over the State that you started it.  I’ll tell Mr. Flint to-morrow.  Take it, do you hear me?  You ask me if I have any pride in you.  I answer, yes.  I’d like to see what you can do.  I’ve done what I could for you, and now I wash my hands of you.  Go,—­ruin yourself if you want to.  You’ve always been headed that way, and there’s no use trying to stop you.  You don’t seem to have any notion of decency or order, or any idea of the principle on which this government was based.  Attack property destroy it.  So much the better for you and your kind.  Join the Humphrey Crewes—­you belong with ’em.  Give those of us who stand for order and decency as much trouble as you can.  Brand us as rascals trying to enrich ourselves with politics, and proclaim yourselves saints nobly striving to get back the rights of the people.  If you don’t bring that suit, I tell you I’ll give you the credit for it—­and I mean what I say.”

Austen got to his feet.  His own expression, curiously enough, had not changed to one of anger.  His face had set, but his eyes held the look that seemed still to express compassion, and what he felt was a sorrow that went to the depths of his nature.  What he had so long feared—­what he knew they had both feared—­had come at last.

“Good-by, Judge,” he said.

Hilary Vane stared at him dumbly.  His anger had not cooled, his eyes still flamed, but he suddenly found himself bereft of speech.  Austen put his hand on his father’s shoulder, and looked down silently into his face.  But Hilary was stiff as in a rigour, expressionless save for the defiant red in his eye.

“I don’t think you meant all that, Judge, and I don’t intend to hold it against you.”

Still Hilary stared, his lips in the tight line which was the emblem of his character, his body rigid.  He saw his son turn and walk to the door, and turn again with his handle on the knob, and Hilary did not move.  The door closed, and still he sat there, motionless, expressionless.

Austen was hailed by those in the outer office, but he walked through them as though the place were empty.  Rumours sprang up behind him of which he was unconscious; the long-expected quarrel had come; Austen had joined the motley ranks of the rebels under Mr. Crewe.  Only the office boy, Jimmy Towle, interrupted the jokes that were flying by repeating, with dogged vehemence, “I tell you it ain’t so.  Austen kicked Ham downstairs.  Ned Johnson saw him.”  Nor was it on account of this particular deed that Austen was a hero in Jimmy’s eyes.