“I’ll probably never be able to talk to you like this again, so I want to say it all now.  I want to say that I know, beyond doubt, that you would never decide anything, as I would, on impulse, or prejudice, or from any motives but the highest.  I know how well-balanced you are, and how firmly your reason holds your feelings.  So it’s a question between your judgment and mine—­and I’m going to trust yours.  You may know me better than I know myself, and anyway you’re more to me than any career, though I did think—­but we won’t discuss it again.  It would have been a tremendous risk, of course, and it shall be as you say.  I found out this afternoon how much of my life you were,” he repeated.

The older man kept his eyes fixed on the dark, sensitive, glowing young face, as if they were thirsty for the sight.  “What do you mean by finding it out this afternoon, Ted?  Did anything happen to you?”

The young fellow turned his eyes, that were still a bit wet with the tears, to his father’s face, and they shone like brown stars.  “It was a queer thing,” he said, earnestly, “It was the sort of thing you read in stories—­almost like,” he hesitated, “like Providence, you know.  I’ll tell you about it; see if you don’t think so.  Two days ago, when I—­when I left you, father—­I caught a train to the city and went straight to the club, from habit, I suppose, and because I was too dazed and wretched to think.  Of course, I found a grist of men there, and they wouldn’t let me go.  I told them I was ill, but they laughed at me.  I don’t remember just what I did, for I was in a bad dream, but I was about with them, and more men I knew kept turning up—­I couldn’t seem to escape my friends.  Even if I stayed in my room, they hunted me up.  So this morning I shifted to the Oriental, and shut myself up in my room there, and tried to think and plan.  But I felt pretty rotten, and I couldn’t see daylight, so I went down to lunch, and who should be at the next table but the Dangerfields, the whole outfit, just back from England and bursting with cheerfulness!  They made me lunch with them, and it was ghastly to rattle along feeling as I did, but I got away as soon us I decently could—­rather sooner, I think—­and went for a walk, hoping the air would clear my head.  I tramped miles—­oh, a long time, but it seemed not to do any good; I felt deadlier and more hopeless than ever—­I haven’t been very comfortable fighting you,” he stopped a minute, and his tired face turned to his father’s with a smile of very winning gentleness.

The father tried to speak, but, his voice caught harshly.  Then, “We’ll make it up, Ted,” he said, and laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

The young fellow, as if that touch had silenced him, gazed into the fire thoughtfully, and the big room was very still for a long minute.  Then he looked up brightly.