CHAPTER VI
S UCH, as far as a few strokes can picture him, was John Baltazar, at the time when his unsuspected son lay footless in the convalescent home and discussed with Marcelle Baring the mystery of his existence. A man of many failings, many intolerances, of some ruthlessness. A man both sensitive and hard; both bold and shrinking; with the traditional habits of the ostrich and the heart of a lion. A man apparently given to extravagances of caprice; and yet remaining always constant to himself, preserving also throughout his strange career a perfect unity of character. Perhaps, regarding him from another point of view, his detractors may say that he loved to play to himself as audience and, further, put that audience in the gallery. Why not? It is in the essence of human consciousne
