University of Virginia Library

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Gerald Latimer was in love. He had told his father so, and that gentleman was furious.

"A shop-girl! The idea was preposterous!"

Gerald's usually happy boyish face was very white and set as he listened to his father. That gentleman, still quite a young man himself, was highly incensed and disgusted with his young son. He himself was a rich banker, and he had married a

wife with the blood of Condé [3] in her veins. He was one of those self-made Americans who reverence blood and aristocracy, and in return for the superabundance of wealth they bestow on their children, demand that they marry to please them. Mr. Latimer was thoroughly disgusted with his son. Is this all his Yale training had done for him? Where had he inherited his low taste from? Latimer, Sr., refused to even discuss the subject. A shop-girl! Gerald was to distinctly understand that he disapproved of it, and would cut him off without a penny and refuse to see him again if he persisted in his mad folly; and after having delivered himself of the foregoing to Gerald, Mr. Latimer betook him to the Union League Club and tried to forget in a bird and a bottle of Burgundy the irritating fact that his son had a will of his own also.

As for Gerald? He went to his lady mother. She lay back in her chair and cried weakly. She was one of those chronic invalids who pamper a perhaps imaginary malady, but she was kinder than the father, and really had more genuine love and affection for her son. She herself had been starved for want of affection. Her husband had never loved her.

"She is so sweet, mother; you could not help loving her," Gerald told her pleadingly. "Let me bring her to see you."

"Your father would never forgive me."

"She would win even him, mamma dear."

"Where did you meet her?"