"That is in itself an advantage," she answered with a tinge of asperity. In
spite of an honest effort for impartiality she could not, at the moment,
help regarding Darrow as an obstacle in her son's path.

"I wish the competition were over!" she exclaimed, conscious that her voice
had betrayed her. "I hate to see you both looking so fagged."

Darrow smiled again, perhaps at her studied inclusion of himself.

"Oh, _Dick_'s all right," he said. "He'll pull himself together in no
time."

He spoke with an emphasis which might have struck her, if her sympathies
had not again been deflected by the allusion to her son.

"Not if he doesn't win," she exclaimed.

Darrow took the tea she had poured for him, knocking the spoon to the floor
in his eagerness to perform the feat gracefully. In bending to recover the
spoon he struck the tea-table with his shoulder, and set the cups dancing.
Having regained a measure of composure, he took a swallow of the hot tea
and set it down with a gasp, precariously near the edge of the tea-table.
Mrs. Peyton rescued the cup, and Darrow, apparently forgetting its
existence, rose and began to pace the room. It was always hard for him to
sit still when he talked.

"You mean he's so tremendously set on it?" he broke out.

Mrs. Peyton hesitated. "You know him almost as well as I do," she said.
"He's capable of anything where there is a possibility of success; but I'm