“Oh yes, sir.  I think all that’s very interesting,” said Dan.

“Well, go to France, and see how those fellows do it.  Go to London, and look up William Morris.”

“Yes, that would be very nice,” admitted the young fellow, beginning to catch on.  “But I didn’t suppose—­I didn’t expect to begin life with a picnic.”  He entered upon his sentence with a jocular buoyancy, but at the last word, which he fatally drifted upon, his voice fell.  He said to himself that he was greatly changed; that, he should never be gay and bright again; there would always be this undercurrent of sadness; he had noticed the undercurrent yesterday when he was laughing and joking with those girls at Portland.

“Oh, I don’t want you to buckle down at once,” said his father, smiling.  “If you’d decided upon the law, I should have felt that you’d better not lose time.  But as you’re going into the business, I don’t mind your taking a year off.  It won’t be lost time if you keep your eyes open.  I think you’d better go down into Italy and Spain.  Look up the old tapestries and stamped leathers.  You may get some ideas.  How would you like it?”

“First-rate.  I should like it,” said Dan, rising on the waft of his father’s suggestion, but gloomily lapsing again.  Still, it was pleasing to picture himself going about through Europe with a broken heart, and he did not deny himself the consolation of the vision.

“Well, there’s nobody to dislike it,” said his father cheerily.  He was sure now that Dan had been jilted; otherwise he would have put forth some objection to a scheme which must interrupt his lovemaking.  “There’s no reason why, with our resources, we shouldn’t take the lead in this business.”

He went on to speak more fully of his plans, and Dan listened with a nether reference of it all to Alice, but still with a surface intelligence on which nothing was lost.

“Are you going home with me to-morrow?” asked his father as they rose from the table.

“Well, perhaps not to-morrow.  I’ve got some of my things to put together in Cambridge yet, and perhaps I’d better look after them.  But I’ve a notion I’d better spend the winter at home, and get an idea of the manufacture before I go abroad.  I might sail in January; they say it’s a good month.”

“Yes, there’s sense in that,” said his father.

“And perhaps I won’t break up in Cambridge till I’ve been to New York and Philadelphia.  What do you think?  It’s easier striking them from here.”

“I don’t know but you’re right,” said his father easily.

They had come out of the dining-room, and Dan stopped to get some cigarettes in the office.  He looked mechanically at the theatre bills over the cigar case.  “I see Irving’s at the ‘Boston.’”

“Oh, you don’t say!” said his father.  “Let’s go and see him.”