Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/358

346 and was advised that Miss Conover had reserved a table. He had forgotten to send down the operative who guarded Kitty at that end. But the distance from the office to the Subway was so insignificant!

"You are looking fit," he said across the table.

"Ought to be off your hands by Monday. But what about Stefani Gregor? I can't stir, leaving him hanging on a peg."

"I am going into the study shortly to decide that. Head bother you?"

"Occasionally."

"Ryan easy to get along with?"

"Rather a good sort. I say, you know, you've seen a good deal of life. Which do you consider the stronger, the inherited traits or environment?"

"Environment. That is the true mould. There is good and bad in all of us. It is brought into prominence by the way we live. An angel cannot touch pitch without becoming defiled. On the other hand, the worst gutter rats in the world saved France. Do you suppose that thought will not always be tugging at and uplifting those who returned from the first Marne?"

"There is hope, then, for me!"

"Hope?"

"Yes. You know that my father, my uncle, and my grandfather were fine scoundrels."

"Under their influence you would have been one,