"Holloa, Sir Peter! Fire-worshiping?" a clear voice called buoyantly. "You're as dark in here as though you expected an air-raid. Let's light up and be cheerio, what say?" The speaker pressed a button and flooded the room with soft light. "Judson said you wanted me. Shall I stay now or come back when I've changed?"
Courtlandt senior straightened and looked at his son with the appraising eyes of a stranger. He admitted to himself regretfully that the boy looked older than his twenty-seven years. He was tall and lean and lithe, not an ounce of superfluous flesh on him. He stood with his feet slightly apart, a golf-bag dragging from one arm, his other hand in his coat pocket. His black hair had a rebellious kink, his eyes were dark blue, his nose clean-cut, his lips and chin hinted at a somewhat formidable strength of purpose. Courtlandt's courage oozed as he regarded those last features.
"I--I merely wanted to ask you to give me this evening, Steve. I--I--well, there's business to be talked over."
The son looked back at his father. A slight frown wrinkled his broad forehead. He started to speak, then lifted the golf-bag and went toward the door.
His father listened till his whistle trailed off into silence in the upper regions. His dark eyes clouded with regret. Steve had adapted his selection to dirge tempo.
As father and son smoked and drank their coffee in front of the library fire after dinner, Peter Courtlandt found it even more difficult to approach the distasteful subject. He talked nervously of politics, labor conditions and the latest play. His son watched him keenly through narrowed lids. He emptied and filled his pipe thoughtfully as he waited for a break in his father's flood of words. When it came he dashed in.
"What's the business you wanted to talk with me about, Sir Peter? Fire away and let's get it over. Anything wrong?"
The elder man bent forward to knock the ashes from his cigar. The gravity of Steve's "Sir Peter" had moved him curiously. It was the name his wife had called him, which the boy had adopted when he was too grown-up to say "Daddy." Silent seconds lengthened into minutes as he sat there. The quiet of the room was subtly portentous. There was a hint of unsteadiness in his voice when he finally spoke.