salutation the older man merely ceased moving an instant. He remained bent over the table, one hand arrested in the act of reaching for a document. It was as though he held his breath to listen—or to calculate quickly. 

 The son walked across to him, approaching from behind, and dropped a hand on the stooping, black-clothed shoulder. 

 "How go—" 

 Danny broke his query abruptly, for the other straightened with a half-spoken word that was, at the least, utmost impatience; possibly a word which, fully uttered, would have expressed disgust, perhaps—even loathing! And on Danny was turned such a mask as he had never seen before. The cleanly shaven face was dark. The cold blue eyes flashed a chill fire and the grim slit of a tightly closed mouth twitched, as did the fingers at the skirts of the immaculate coat. 

 Lenox senior backed away, putting out a hand to the table, edging along until a corner of it was between himself and his heir. Then the hand, fingers stiffly extended, pressed against the table top. It trembled. 

 The boy flushed, then smiled, then sobered. On the thought of what seemed to him the certain answer to the strangeness of this reception, his voice broke the stillness, filled with solicitude. 

 "Did I startle you?" he asked, and a smile broke through his concern. "You jumped as though—" 

 Again he broke short. His father's right hand, palm outward, was raised toward him and moved quickly from side to side. That gesture meant silence! Danny had seen it used twice before—once when a man of political power had let his angered talk rise in the Lenox house until it became disquieting; once when a man came there to plead. And the gesture on those occasions had carried the same quiet, ominous conviction that it now impressed on Danny. 

 The voice of the old man was cold and hard, almost brittle for lack of feeling. 

 "How much will you take to go?" he asked, and breathed twice loudly, as though struggling to hold back a bursting emotion. 

 Danny leaned slightly forward from his hips and wrinkled his face in his inability to understand. 

 "What?" He drawled out the word. "Once more, please?" 

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