"No, I mean having Dave do it. It would kill the paper; it would
endanger your whole position; and as for leadership, you could never
hope--"

"Now, look here, Leo. You don't think I can stop my brother's marrying
because it might be a poor connection for me? The point is that it
wouldn't be good for Dave--to be a poorly tolerated hanger-on. That's
why I'm going hot-foot to Newport. And while I'm away do try to do
something about the book page. Get me a culture-hound--get one of
these Pater specialists from Harvard. Or," he added, with sudden
inspiration when his hand was already on the door, "get a woman--she'd
have a sense of beauty and would know how to jolly Green into agreeing
with her." And with this the editor was gone.

It was the end of one of those burning weeks in August that New York
often knows. The sun went down as red as blood every evening behind
the Palisades, and before the streets and roofs had ceased to radiate
heat the sun was up again above Long Island Sound, as hot and red as
ever. As Ben went uptown in the Sixth Avenue Elevated he could see
pale children hanging over the railings of fire escapes, and
behind them catch glimpses of dark, crowded rooms which had all the
disadvantages of caves without the coolness. But to-day he was too
concentrated on his own problem to notice.

Since Ben's sixteenth year his brother David had been dependent on
him. Their father had been professor of economics in a college in that
part of the United States which Easterners describe as the "Middle
West." In the gay days when muck-raking was at its height Professor
Moreton had lost his chair because he had denounced in his lecture