“Will you drink to my happiness, General?”

She was very handsome.  “To our happiness,” he said, eagerly, and unexpectedly, as he took the glass.

Hilda, pouring out more wine for herself, stood suddenly transfixed.  Derry spoke from the threshold.  “Dr. McKenzie has asked you repeatedly not to give my father wine, Miss Merritt.”

He was breathing quickly.  His hat was in his hand and he wore his fur coat.  “Why are you giving it to him against the Doctor’s orders?”

The General interposed.  “Don’t take that tone with Miss Merritt, Derry.  I asked her to get it for me, and she obeyed my orders.  What’s the matter with that?”

“Dr. McKenzie said, explicitly, that you were not to have it.”

“Dr. McKenzie has nothing to do with it.  You may tell him that for me, I am not his patient any longer.”

“Father—­”

“Certainly not.  Do you think I am going to take orders from McKenzie—­or from you?”

“But, Miss Merritt is his nurse, under his orders.”

“She is not going to be his nurse hereafter.  I have other plans for her.”

Derry stood staring, uncomprehending.  “Other plans—­”

“I have asked her to be my wife.”

Oh, lovely painted lady on the stairs, has it come to this?  Have your prayers availed no more than this?  Have the years in which you sacrificed yourself, in which you sacrificed your son, counted no more than this?

Derry felt faint and sick.  “You can’t mean it, Dad.”

“I do mean it.  I—­am a lonely man, Derry.  A disappointed man.  My wife is dead.  My son is a slacker—­”

It was only the maudlin drivel of a man not responsible for what he was saying.  But Derry had had enough.  He took a step forward and stood at the foot of the bed.  “I wouldn’t go any farther if I were you, Dad.  I’ve not been a slacker.  I have never been a slacker.  I am not a coward.  I have never been a coward.  I am going to tell you right now why I am not in France.  Do you think I should have stayed out of it for a moment if it hadn’t been for you?  Has it ever crossed your mind that if you had been half a man I might have acted like a whole one?  Have you ever looked back at the years and seen me going out into the night to follow you and bring you back?  I am not whining.  I loved you, and I wanted to do it; but it wasn’t easy.  And I should still be doing it; but of late you’ve said things that I can’t forgive.  I’ve stood by you because I gave a promise to my mother—­that I wouldn’t leave you.  And I’ve stayed.  But now I shan’t try any more.  I am going to France.  I am going to fight.  I am not your son, sir.  I am the son of my mother.”

Then the General said what he would never have said if he had been himself.

“If you are not my son, then, by God, you shan’t have any of my money.”

“I don’t want it.  Do you think that I do?  I shall get out of here tonight, and I shan’t come back.  There is only one thing that I want besides my own personal traps—­and that is my mother’s picture on the stairs.”