good things of life, without ever doing aught to deserve them by
contributing in return--save by his smiles and his genial air of
happiness.

In the twenty-three years of his life, every gift that money
could lavish had been his. If the sum total of benefit was
small, at least there remained the consoling fact that the harm
was even less. Luxury had not sapped the strength of him. He
had not grown vicious, as have so many of his fellows among the
sons of the rich. Some instinct held him aloof from the grosser
vices. His were the trifling faults that had their origin
chiefly in the joy of life, which manifest occasionally in
riotous extravagancies, of a sort actually to harm none, however
absurd and useless they may be.

So much one might see by a glance into the face. He was well
groomed, of course; healthy, all a-tingle with vitality. And in
the clear eyes, which avoided no man's gaze, nor sought any
woman's unseemly, there showed a soul untainted, not yet
developed, not yet debased. Through all his days, Dick Gilder had
walked gladly, in the content that springs to the call of one
possessed of a capacity for enjoyment; possessed, too, of every
means for the gratification of desire. As yet, the man of him
was unrevealed in its integrity. No test had been put upon him.
The fires of suffering had not tried the dross of him. What real
worth might lie under this sunny surface the future must
determine. There showed now only this one significant fact:
that, in the first moment of his return from journeyings abroad,
he sought his father with all eagerness, and was sorely grieved
because the meeting must still be delayed. It was a little