I went on to tell him about my own sons, and what I had done for them; I told him of a score of other boys in their class who had come to me, making me a sort of mother-confessor.  I do not think that I was entirely deceived by my own eloquence—­there was, I am sure, a minute or two when he actually wavered.  But then the habits of a precocious life-time reasserted themselves, and he set his lips and told himself that he was Douglas van Tuiver.  Such things might happen in raw Western colleges, but they were not according to the Harvard manner, nor the tradition of life in Fifth Avenue clubs.

He could not be a boy!  He had never had any boyhood, any childhood—­he had been a state personage ever since he had known that he was anything.  I found myself thinking suddenly of the thin-lipped old family lawyer, who had had much to do with shaping his character, and whom Sylvia described to me, sitting at her dinner-table and bewailing the folly of people who “admitted things.”  That was what made trouble for family lawyers—­not what people did, but what they admitted.  How easy it was to ignore impertinent questions!  And how few people had the wit to do it!-it seemed as if the shade of the thin-lipped old family lawyer were standing by Douglas van Tuiver’s side.

In a last desperate effort, I cried, “Even suppose that I grant your request, even suppose I agree not to tell Sylvia the truth—­still the day will come when you will hear from her the point-blank question:  ‘Is my child blind because of this disease?’ And what will you answer?”

He said, in his cold, measured tones, “I will answer that there are a thousand ways in which the disease can be innocently acquired.”

For a long time there was silence between us.  At last he spoke again, and his voice was as emotionless as if we had just met:  “Do I understand you, madam, that if I reject your advice and refuse to tell my wife what you call the truth, it is your intention to tell her yourself?”

“You understand me correctly,” I replied.

“And may I ask when you intend to carry out this threat?”

“I will wait,” I said, “I will give you every chance to think it over—­to consult with the doctors, in case you wish to.  I will not take the step without giving you fair notice.”

“For that I am obliged to you,” he said, with a touch of irony; and that was our last word.

26.  Our island was visible in the distance and I was impatient for the time when I should be free from this man’s presence.  But as we drew nearer, I noticed a boat coming out; it proved to be one of the smaller launches heading directly for us.  Neither van Tuiver nor I spoke, but both of us watched it, and he must have been wondering, as I was, what its purpose could be.  When it was near enough, I made out that its passengers were Dr. Perrin and Dr. Gibson.

We slowed up, and the other boat did the same, and they lay within a few feet of each other.  Dr. Perrin greeted van Tuiver, and after introducing the other man, he said:  “We came out to have a talk with you.  Would you be so good as to step into this boat?”