his son. The elder Stillwell, high up in the Provincial Political world,
saw to it that his son was on all the big Provincial War Committees.
Rupert had all the shrewd foresight and business ability of his father,
which was saying a good deal. He began to assume the role of a promising
young capitalist. The sources of his income no one knew--fortunate
investments, people said. And his Hudson Six stood at the Rectory gate
every day. Well, not even for Adrien would Jack have changed places with
Rupert Stillwell. For Jack Maitland held the extreme and, in certain
circles, unpopular creed that the citizen who came richer out of a war
which had left his country submerged in debt, and which had drained away
its best blood and left it poorer in its manhood by well-nigh seventy
thousand of its noblest youth left upon the battlefields of the various
war fronts and by the hundreds of thousands who would go through life
a burden to themselves and to those to whom they should have been a
support--that citizen was accursed. If Adrien chose to be a friend
of such a man, by that choice she classified herself as impossible of
friendship for Jack. It had hurt a bit. But what was one hurt more or
less to one whom the war had left numb in heart and bereft of ambition?
He was not going to pity himself. He was lucky indeed to have his body
and nerve still sound and whole, but they need not expect him to show
any great keenness in the chase for a few more thousands that would only
rank him among those for whom the war had not done so badly. Meantime,
for his father's sake, who, thank God, had given his best, his heart's
best and the best of his brain and of his splendid business genius
to his country, he would carry on, with no other reward than that of
service rendered.



CHAPTER III