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“You see why I’ve brought this letter to you–I couldn’t go to him with it!” Draper’s voice faltered, and the resemblance vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

“No; you couldn’t go to him with it,” said Millner slowly.

“And since they say here that you know: that they’ve got your letter proving it–” The muscles of Draper’s face quivered as if a blinding light had been swept over it. “For God’s sake, Millner–it’s all right?”

“It’s all right,” said Millner, rising to his feet.

Draper caught him by the wrist. “You’re sure–you’re absolutely sure?”

“Sure. They know they’ve got nothing to go on.”

Draper fell back a step and looked almost sternly at his friend. “You know that’s not what I mean. I don’t care a straw what they think they’ve got to go on. I want to know if my father’s all right. If he is, they can say what they please.”

Millner, again, felt himself under the concentrated scrutiny of the ceiling. “Of course, of course. I understand.”

“You understand? Then why don’t you answer?”

Millner looked compassionately at the boy’s struggling face. Decidedly, the battle was to the strong, and he was not sorry to be on the side of the legions. But Draper’s pain was as awkward as a material obstacle, as something that one stumbled over in a race.

“You know what I’m driving at, Millner.” Again Mr. Spence’s committee-meeting tone sounded oddly through his son’s strained voice. “If my father’s so awfully upset about my giving up my Bible Class, and letting it be known that I do so on conscientious grounds, is it because he’s afraid it may be considered a criticism on something he has done which–which won’t bear the test of the doctrines he believes in?”

Draper, with the last question, squared himself in front of Millner, as if suspecting that the latter meant to evade it by flight. But Millner had never felt more disposed to stand his ground than at that moment.

“No–by Jove, no! It’s not that.” His relief almost escaped him in a cry, as he lifted his head to give back Draper’s look.

“On your honour?” the other passionately pressed him.

“Oh, on anybody’s you like–on yours!” Millner could hardly restrain a laugh of relief. It was vertiginous to find himself spared, after all, the need of an altruistic lie: he perceived that they were the kind he least liked.

Draper took a deep breath. “You don’t–Millner, a lot depends on this–you don’t really think my father has any ulterior motive?”

“I think he has none but his horror of seeing you go straight to perdition!”

They looked at each other again, and Draper’s tension was suddenly relieved by a free boyish laugh. “It’s his convictions–it’s just his funny old convictions?”

“It’s that, and nothing else on earth!”

Draper turned back to the arm-chair he had left, and let his narrow figure sink down into it as into a bath. Then he looked over at Millner with a smile. “I can see that I’ve been worrying him horribly. So he really thinks I’m on the road to perdition? Of course you can fancy what a sick minute I had when I thought it might be this other reason–the damnable insinuation in this letter.” Draper crumpled the paper in his hand, and leaned forward to toss it into the coals of the grate. “I ought to have known better, of course. I ought to have remembered that, as you say, my father can’t conceive how conduct may be independent of creed. That’s where I was stupid–and rather base. But that letter made me dizzy–I couldn’t think. Even now I can’t very clearly. I’m not sure what my convictions require of me: they seem to me so much less to be considered than his! When I’ve done half the good to people that he has, it will be time enough to begin attacking their beliefs. Meanwhile–meanwhile I can’t touch his. …” Draper leaned forward, stretching his lank arms along his knees. His face was as clear as a spring sky. “I won’t touch them, Millner–Go and tell him so. …”