He heard his chum Willetts gaily discuss plans for the summer, all of which necessitated Mr. Thomas Leigh's presence at certain friendly houses. But he said nothing until after the luncheon was over and the talk had begun to drag desultorily, as it does when guests feel “good-by” before they say it.
“Well,” said Tommy, smiling pleasantly after the pause that followed Marion's beginning to button a glove, “you might as well hear it now as later. It will save postage. I am not going to see you after to-day!”
“What!” cried Rivington.
“That!” said Tommy. “My father told me this morning that there was nothing doing for me in finance.”
“Oh, they always tell you business is rotten,” said Rivington, reassuringly. His own father, with hundreds of tenanted houses, always talked that way.
“Yes, but this time it's so.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Marion, in distress, “did you talk back to—”
“My child, no harsh words passed my lips nor his. I received honey with quinine from old Doctor Fate. The father of your dear friend is down to cases. The stuff simply isn't there; so it's me for commerce and industry.”
“What the heavens are you shooting at, Tommy?”
“In plain English, it means that I've got to go to work, earn my own cigarette money, cut my fastidious appetite in two, and hustle like a squirrel in a peanut warehouse. I'm going to Dayton, Ohio.”
“Oh, Tommy!” said Marion. She had ceased to fumble with her gloves, and was looking at young Mr. Leigh with deep sympathy and a subtle admiration.
Tommy was made aware of both by the relatively simple expedient of looking into her eyes. The conviction came upon him like a tidal wave that this was the finest girl in the world. He shared his great trouble with her, and that made her his as it had made him hers.
She was overpoweringly beautiful!
Then came the reaction. It could never be! Calmly stated, she knew that he was going to do a man's work. But she did not know why, nor why he must leave New York. He turned on her a pair of startled, fear-filled eyes.
She became serious as by magic. “What is it?” she whispered.
The low tones brought her very close to him. Tommy wished to have no secrets from her, but he could not tell her. She read his unwillingness with the amazing intuition of women. Their relations subtly changed with that exchange of glances.
“I—I can't tell you—all the—the reasons,” he stammered, feeling himself helpless against the drive of something within him that insisted on talking. “I can't!” He paused, and then he whispered, pleadingly, “And you mustn't ask me!”
If she insisted he would confess, and he mustn't.
“I wish I had the nerve,” broke in Rivington, his voice dripping admiration and regret. “Tommy, you are some person, believe me!”
Tommy had forgotten that Rivington was present. He turned to his friend now. In his eyes, as in the eyes of the girl, Tommy saw hero-worship. This unanimity made Tommy feel very like his own portrait painted by the friendship of Rivington Willetts, Esquire.
“Oh, pshaw!” he said, modestly. “I've got to do it. I wouldn't if I didn't have to.”
“Yes, you would,” contradicted Marion, positively.
He in turn was too polite to contradict her. But a moment later, when they shook hands at parting, he made his trusty right convey in detail his acknowledgment that she knew everything. He was absolutely certain she would understand the speech he had not expressed in the words he had so carefully selected to speak silently with.
Rivington made him promise to dine at the College Club that evening. A lot of the fellows would surely be there. Tommy went—the more willingly because he could not bear to talk to his father about the one subject that seemed inevitable between them. And, moreover, while he did not intend to talk about it with his comrades, he had always discussed everything else with them for four years. Their presence would help to make his own silence tolerable to himself.
The most curious thing in the world happened. Instead of expressing sympathy for Mr. Thomas Leigh's financial reverses, all of the boys offered him nothing but congratulations on his pluck, his resolve, and his profound philosophy. He felt himself elected by acclamation to a position as the oldest and wisest of the greatest class in history, the first of them all to become a man.
The majority of his intimates were sons of millionaires, with not a snob among them, the splendid democracy of their college having decreed that snobbery was the unpardonable crime.
But it was plain that none of them ever had expected labor to fall to his lot. Now they felt certain of his success. They gravely discussed methods for winning fame and fortune, and were not only profound, but even cynical at times. They had quite a store of maxims which they called the right dope. When they asked him what he was going to do he smiled mysteriously and shook his head. He did this purely in self-defense. But they said he was a deep one.
He left them, immensely comforted. It was only when he was in his room an hour later, trying to go to sleep, that the grim reality of his tragedy came to him. What, he asked himself bitterly, could he do? He was almost helpless in the grasp of the terrible monster called the world. His hands were tied—almost in handcuffs.
The thought made him close his teeth tightly. He would do it somehow. Fate had tom from his bleeding heart the right to have friends. He would regain the right. He fell asleep while in this fighting mood.
When Tommy walked into the dining-room the next morning to have breakfast with his father, he was surprised to find himself wondering over the particular form of salutation. He desired his father to know what his plans were and what caused them. And also his loyalty must be made plain. Therefore, he said with a cheerfulness, he could not help exaggerating:
“Good morning, dad!”
Mr. Leigh looked up quickly, almost apprehensively, at his only son. Then he looked away and said, very quietly, “Good morning, my son.” There was an awkward pause. Mr. Leigh could not see the smile of loyalty that Tommy had forced his lips to show for his father's special benefit. So Tommy decided that he must encourage Mr. Leigh verbally. He said, with a brisk sort of earnestness:
“Well, I answered several ads in the Herald. This is the one I particularly like.”
He took from his pocket the Dayton call and gave it to Mr. Leigh.
Mr. Leigh took it with so pitiful an eagerness that Tommy felt very sorry for him. When he finished reading Mr. Leigh frowned. Tommy wondered why.
Presently the old man asked, almost diffidently, “Do you think you—you can meet the expected requirements?”
Tommy's entire life-to-be passed pageant-like before his mind's eye in a twinkling. The banners were proudly borne by Tommy's emotions; and Tommy's resolve to do what he must was the drum-major.
“Sure thing!” answered' Tommy. He felt the false note in his reply even before he saw the change that came over his father's face. “Yes, sir,” pursued Mr. Thomas Leigh, in a distinctly middle-aged voice. “I don't know what he wants, but I know what I want. And if I want to be a man and he wants me to be one, I can't see what's to hinder either of us. My boy days are over, and I have got to pay back—I'm going to do what I can to show I appreciate your”—here Tommy gulped—“the sacrifices you've made for me. And—oh, father!” Tommy ceased to speak. He couldn't help it.
Mr. Leigh's face took on the grim look Tommy could never forget, and his voice was harsh.
“I have made no sacrifice for you. What your mother wished you to have I