The gloom of death still darkened the Fifth Avenue place, and there was a stillness, a gentle stealthiness about the house that made him long for more cheerful companionship.

He wondered dimly if a fortune always carried the suggestion of tube-roses.

The richness and strangeness of it all hung about him unpleasantly.

He had had no extravagant affection for the grim old dictator who was dead, yet his grandfather was a man and had commanded his respect.

It seemed brutal to leave him out of the reckoning--to dance on the grave of the mentor who had treated him well.