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Mr. Grew paused again, and both men lifted their eyes to the photograph.

“Is that all?” Ronald slowly asked.

“That’s all–every bit of it,” said Mr. Grew.

“And my mother–my mother never even spoke to Dolbrowski?”

“Never. She never even saw him but that once in New York at his concert.”

“The blood crept again to Ronald’s face. “Are you sure of that, sir?” he asked in a trembling voice.

“Sure as I am that I’m sitting here. Why, she was too lazy to look at his letters after the first novelty wore off. She copied the answers just to humor me–but she always said she couldn’t understand what we wrote.”

“But how could you go on with such a correspondence? It’s incredible!”

Mr. Grew looked at his son thoughtfully. “I suppose it is, to you. You’ve only had to put out your hand and get the things I was starving for–music, and good talk, and ideas. Those letters gave me all that. You’ve read them, and you know that Dolbrowski was not only a great musician but a great man. There was nothing beautiful he didn’t see, nothing fine he didn’t feel. For six months I breathed his air, and I’ve lived on it ever since. Do you begin to understand a little now?”

“Yes–a little. But why write in my mother’s name? Why make it a sentimental correspondence?”

Mr. Grew reddened to his bald temples. “Why, I tell you it began that way, as a kinder joke. And when I saw that the first letter pleased and interested him, I was afraid to tell him–I couldn’t tell him. Do you suppose he’d gone on writing if he’d ever seen me, Ronny?”

Ronald suddenly looked at him with new eyes. “But he must have thought your letters very beautiful–to go on as he did,” he broke out.

“Well–I did my best,” said Mr. Grew modestly.

Ronald pursued his idea. “Where are all your letters, I wonder? Weren’t they returned to you at his death?”

Mr. Grew laughed. “Lord, no. I guess he had trunks and trunks full of better ones. I guess Queens and Empresses wrote to him.”

“I should have liked to see your letters,” the young man insisted.

“Well, they weren’t bad,” said Mr. Grew drily. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Ronny,” he added suddenly. Ronald raised his head with a quick glance, and Mr. Grew continued: “I’ll tell you where the best of those letters is–it’s in you. If it hadn’t been for that one look at life I couldn’t have made you what you are. Oh, I know you’ve done a good deal of your own making–but I’ve been there behind you all the time. And you’ll never know the work I’ve spared you and the time I’ve saved you. Fortune Dolbrowski helped me do that. I never saw things in little again after I’d looked at ’em with him. And I tried to give you the big view from the stars… So that’s what became of my letters.”

Mr. Grew paused, and for a long time Ronald sat motionless, his elbows on the table, his face dropped on his hands.

Suddenly Mr. Grew’s touch fell on his shoulder.

“Look at here, Ronald Grew–do you want me to tell you how you’re feeling at this minute? Just a mite let down, after all, at the idea that you ain’t the romantic figure you’d got to think yourself… Well, that’s natural enough, too; but I’ll tell you what it proves. It proves you’re my son right enough, if any more proof was needed. For it’s just the kind of fool nonsense I used to feel at your age–and if there’s anybody here to laugh at it’s myself, and not you. And you can laugh at me just as much as you like…”