“I can find a plainer term if you insist.”

For a moment Bonbright felt curiously calm, curiously cold, curiously detached from the scene.  He regarded the other man. ...  This man was his father.  His father!  The laws of life and of humanity demanded that he regard this man with veneration.  Yet, offhand, without investigation, this man could jump to a vile conclusion regarding him.  Not only that, but could accuse him, not of guilt, but of failing to conceal guilt! ...  Respectability!  He knew he was watching a manifestation of the family tradition.  It was wrong to commit an unworthy act, but it was a sin unspeakable to be caught by the public in the commission.

His mind worked slowly.  It was a full half minute before the thought bored through to him that he was not the sole nor the greatest sufferer by this accusation.  It was not he who was insulted.  It was not he who was outraged. ...  It was her!

His father could think that of her—­casually.  The mere fact that she was poor, not of his station, a wage-earner, made it plain to the senior Foote that Ruth Frazer would welcome a squalid affair with his son. ...  The Sultan throwing his handkerchief.

Bonbright’s calm gave place to turmoil, his chill to heat.

“It’s not true,” he said, haltingly, using feeble words because stronger had not yet had time to surge up to the surface.

“Bosh!” said the father.

Then Bonbright blazed.  Restraints crumbled.  The Harvard manner peeled off and lay quivering with horror at his feet.  He stepped a pace closer to his father, so that his face was close to his father’s face, and his smoldering eyes were within inches of his father’s scornful ones.

“It’s a lie,” he said, huskily, “a damned, abominable, insulting lie.”

“Young man,” his father shipped back, “be careful. ...”

“Careful! ...  I don’t know who carried this thing to you, but whoever did was a miserable, sneaking mucker.  He lied and he knew he lied. ...  And you, sir, you were willing to believe.  Probably you were eager to believe. ...  I sha’n’t defend Miss Frazer.  Only a fool or a mucker could believe such a thing of her. ...  Yes, I have been to see her, and I’ll tell you why. ...  I’ll tell you why, good and plenty! ...  My first day in this place she was the only human, pleasant thing I met.  Her smile was the only life or brightness in the place. ...  Everything else was dead men’s bones.  The place is a tomb and it stinks of graveclothes.  Our whole family stinks of graveclothes.  Family tradition! ...  Men dead and rotten and eaten by worms—­they run this place, and you want me to let them run me. ...  Every move you make you consult a skeleton. ...  And you want to smash and crush and strangle me so that I’ll be willing to walk with a weight of dead bones. ...  I’ve tried.  You are my father, and I thought maybe you knew best. ...  I’ve submitted.  I’ve submitted