"Paul didn't _live_," he said impatiently. "I can't ask a woman with two children to think of--hang it, she's under no actual obligation--" He rose and began to walk the floor. Presently he paused and halted in front of me, defensively, as Paul had once done years before. "It's not that I've lost the sense of _my_ obligation--it grows keener with the growth of my happiness; but my position's a delicate one--"

"Ah, my dear fellow--"

"You _do_ see it? I knew you would." (Yes, he was duller!) "That's the point. I can't strip my wife and children to carry out a plan--a plan so nebulous that even its inventor. . . . The long and short of it is that the whole scheme must be re-studied, reorganized. Paul lived in a world of dreams."

I rose and tossed my cigar into the fire. "There were some things he never dreamed of," I said.

Halidon rose too, facing me uneasily. "You mean--?"

"That _you_ would taunt him with not having spent that money."

He pulled himself up with darkening brows; then the muscles of his forehead relaxed, a flush suffused it, and he held out his hand in boyish penitence.

"I stand a good deal from you," he said.

He kept up his idea of going over the Academy question--threshing it out once for all, as he expressed it; but my suggestion that we should provisionally resuscitate the extinct board did not meet with his approval.

"Not till the whole business is settled. I shouldn't have the face--Wait till I can go to them and say: 'We're laying the foundation-stone on such a day.'"

We had one or two conferences, and Ned speedily lost himself in a maze of figures. His nimble fancy was recalcitrant to mental discipline, and he excused his inattention with the plea "Paul didn't _live_," he said impatiently. "I can't ask a woman with two children to think of--hang it, she's under no actual obligation--" He rose and began to walk the floor. Presently he paused and halted in front of me, defensively, as Paul had once done years before. "It's not that I've lost the sense of _my_ obligation--it grows keener with the growth of my happiness; but my position's a delicate one--"

"Ah, my dear fellow--"

"You _do_ see it? I knew you would." (Yes, he was duller!) "That's the point. I can't strip my wife and children to carry out a plan--a plan so nebulous that even its inventor. . . . The long and short of it is that the whole scheme must be re-studied, reorganized. Paul lived in a world of dreams."

I rose and tossed my cigar into the fire. "There were some things he never dreamed of," I said.

Halidon rose too, facing me uneasily. "You mean--?"

"That _you_ would taunt him with not having spent that money."

He pulled himself up with darkening brows; then the muscles of his forehead relaxed, a flush suffused it, and he held out his hand in boyish penitence.

"I stand a good deal from you," he said.

He kept up his idea of going over the Academy question--threshing it out once for all, as he expressed it; but my suggestion that we should provisionally resuscitate the extinct board did not meet with his approval.

"Not till the whole business is settled. I shouldn't have the face--Wait till I can go to them and say: 'We're laying the foundation-stone on such a day.'"

We had one or two conferences, and Ned speedily lost himself in a maze of figures. His nimble fancy was recalcitrant to mental discipline, and he excused his inattention with the plea that he had no head for business.