depended as his most valued lieutenants.  He had been brooding over matters so long that this new and tenser situation, as he saw it, made him feel it to be his duty to talk it over with Gorham.  He was none too sure that his doubts would be shared or even accepted, and this uncertainty added to his apprehensiveness in breaking over what he knew to be his chief’s implied commands.  This was his first experience in a business office, and it might be that what caused him anxiety was only a part of the day’s work, to be found in any similar establishment.  Still, he determined to free his mind of its ever-present burden, and he selected the time shortly after Gorham’s return from Washington.

Gorham listened to Allen’s reports well into the night.  The boy did most of the talking, and Gorham absorbed with little comment the story which he had to tell.  Allen was surprised and relieved to find that he listened to him without criticism, and it strengthened him in his own confidence to find that the elder man treated him with a consideration beyond that which he had previously received.

“You are quite right to come to me with this,” Gorham said at length; “but I feel that, as far as the business is concerned, you are unduly apprehensive.  I shall satisfy myself on this point on my return to the office.  Now, as to Mr. Covington:  I have been aware for weeks of your personal dislike for each other, but it is unworthy of you, Allen, to allow this to influence you to the extent of doing him so great an injustice.”

Allen colored deeply at the criticism.  “I have waited until I am certain that it is no injustice before bringing the matter to you,” he said.

“I have also been aware of another fact,” Gorham continued, “which is in itself an explanation of your present attitude.  When I tell you that it is my fondest hope that Alice shall marry Mr. Covington, you will understand.  This in itself is the strongest evidence I could give of my confidence in him.”

This was a blow far greater than any Alice had dealt him.  Allen had never lost hope that sooner or later he could convince her that he had attained man’s estate, and this he considered the only real barrier between them.  But if Mr. Gorham had set his heart upon her marriage to Covington, he knew the case was hopeless.  The older man watched him as he struggled with himself.

“You should have no thought at present of marrying any one,” he said, kindly.  “You are not mature enough yet to know your own mind.  You have done well, and I have great hopes for your future, but for the present you must be content to solve one day’s problems before taking up the next.”

“I wouldn’t mind so much about Alice,” the boy finally managed to blurt out, “if it was any one except Mr. Covington.”

“Have you any actual evidence that he is other than an upright, able man, whose character entitles him to the fullest confidence and esteem?”