Rand’s lips set closely.  Ludwell Cary might not know where all his shafts were striking, but Rand felt the sting.  Fair fight in the courtroom,—­that was one thing,—­but this paper was wrought of sterner stuff.  There was in it even a solemnity of warning.  Rand’s soul, that was in the grasp of Giant Two-Ways, writhed for a moment, then lay still again.  With his characteristic short laugh, he shook off the feeling that he mistook for weakness, dismissed the momentary abashment, and pursued his way through the snowy streets.  The question now in his mind was whether or no he should make his resentment plain to Ludwell Cary.  At long intervals, three or four times in the winter, perhaps, it was the latter’s custom to lift the knocker of Rand’s door, and to sit for an hour in Jacqueline’s drawing-room.  Sometimes Rand was there, sometimes not; Cary’s coming had grown to be a habit of the house, quiet, ordered, and urbane as all its habits were.  Its master now determined, after a moment’s sharp debate, to say nothing that he might not have said before he knew the identity of that writer to the Gazette.  He was conscious of no desire for immediate retaliation; these things settled themselves in the long run.  He did not intend speaking of the matter to Jacqueline.  Pride forbade his giving Cary reason to surmise that he had hit the truth.  Rand was willing to believe that many of the shafts were chance-sent.  The reflection hardly lessened his anger, but it enabled him to thrust the matter behind him to the limbo of old scores.

He was crossing Broad Street when the door of a house before him opened, and a young man, with a gay word of farewell to some one in the doorway, ran down the steps and into the snowy street.  It was Fairfax Cary.  Rand and he, passing, lifted their hats, but they did not speak.  Had it been the elder Cary, there would have been a moment’s tarrying, an exchange of courteous speech.  But Fairfax Cary made no secret of his enmity.  If he did not offensively publish it, if he was, indeed, for so young a man, somewhat grimly silent upon those frequent occasions when Rand was talked of, the hostility was defined, and at times frank.  He went on now with his handsome head held high.  Rand looked after him with a curious, even a wistful smile upon his lips.  He was himself a man young in years and strength of passion, but older far in experience and in thought.  He did not dislike Fairfax Cary; he thought indeed that the young man’s spirit, bearing, and partisanship were admirable.  His smile was for the thought that had lightened through his mind:  “If in after years I could have a son like that!” He wanted children; he wanted a son.  Rand sighed.  The day had been vexatious, and there were heavy questions yet to settle before the evening closed.  After all, what was the use, since Jacqueline cared nothing for baubles, and there was no child!  Better live out his days at Roselands, a farmer and a country lawyer!  He shook off the weight, summoned all his household troop of thoughts, and went on homewards through the falling snow.