This boy, who was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh,
meant to fight him. He threw back his head and laughed. His boy, his son,
meant to fight him, did he? Well, so be it! He got to his feet, and
walked up and down the room.
"God, what an issue this!" he said. "It would be terrific, if he won. To
wipe me out of the life where I have flourished--what a triumph for him!
And he would not know how great the triumph would be. She has not told
him. Yet she will urge him on. Suppose it was she put the idea into his
head!"
Then he threw back his head, shaking the long brown hair, browner than
Carnac's, from his forehead. "Suppose she did this thing--she who was all
mine for one brief moment! Suppose she--"
Every nerve tingled; every drop of blood beat hard against his walls of
flesh; his every vicious element sprang into life.
"But no--but no, she would not do it. She would not teach her son to
destroy his own father. But something must have told him to come and
listen to me, to challenge me in his own mind, and then--then this
thing!"
He stared at the paper, leaning over the table, as though it were a
document of terror.
"I must go on: I must uphold the policy for which I've got the assent of
the Government.
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