imagines that she could even think of marrying him! Sixty-three, if he's a day!" Mr. Billings had not been thinking of the storm while he stood in the window.

"Fine old New York name, Billings," mused Knapp. "You can't tell what these women will do to get a name that means something."

Mr. Billings was silent for a long time. Suddenly he stirred himself, relighted his cigar, and remarked: "By Jove, hear that wind howling, will you! It's really worse than the blizzard of '93." "Billings" was not yet a fine old New York name.

The crowd of young fellows at the other end watched Mr. Van Pycke vanish through the door. He was peering into his nose-glasses in such a lofty manner that one might have believed that he scented something disagreeable in every one who passed. As a matter of fact, his sole object was to discover his son if possible. For a long time he had nourished the conviction that his son would not take the trouble to discover him, if he could help it, no matter how close the propinquity. Mr. Van Pycke attributed this phase of filial indifference to the sublimity of caste. After all, wasn't Bosworth the son of his father, and wasn't it quite natural that he should be an improvement on all the Van Pyckes who had gone before? What was the sense in having a son if it were not to better the breed?

Sometimes, however, Mr. Van Pycke experienced the sickening fear that Bosworth avoided him because of a foolish prejudice against the lending of money to relatives. There was an admirable counter-irritant, however, in Bosworth's assertion that one never got back the money he lent to relatives; and, as long as Mr. Van Pycke had known him in a pecuniary way, the young man had lived up to this principle by not even suggesting the return of a loan. Mr. Van Pycke was very proud of his son. He sometimes wished he could see more of him.

Bosworth lived in the club. Van Pycke, senior, had lived there, but was now living at one of the other clubs—he would have had some difficulty in remembering just which one if suddenly questioned.

"I hope Buzzy isn't going to turn out like the old man," said one of the loungers, addressing himself to the crowd.

"Oh, he'll marry rich and go the pace, and the old man will die happy," said another.

"He's hanging around that flossy Mrs. Scoville a good bit these days," observed the drawler. "That's not the best thing in the world for him."

 Prev. P 8/78 next