Bonbright turned, his shoulders dropping so that a more sympathetic eye than his father’s might have found itself moistening, and walked slowly back to his room.  He did not sit at his desk, but walked to the window, where he rested his brow against his hand and looked out upon as much of the world as he could see. ...  It seemed large to him, filled with promise, filled with interests, filled with activities for him—­if he could only be about them.  But they were held tantalizingly out of reach.

He was safe in his groove; had not slipped there gradually and smoothly, but had been thrust roughly, by sudden attack, into it.

His young, healthy soul cried out in protest against the affront that had been put upon it.  Not that the issue itself had mattered so much, but that it had been so handled, ruthlessly.  Bonbright was no friend to labor.  He had merely been a surprised observer of certain phenomena that had aroused him to thought.  He did not feel that labor was right and that his father was wrong.  It might be his father was very right. ...  But labor was such a huge mass, and when a huge mass seethes it is impressive.  Possibly this mass was wrong; possibly its seething must be stilled for the better interests of mankind.  Bonbright did not know.  He had wanted to know; had wanted the condition explained to him.  Instead, he had been crushed into his groove humiliatingly.

Bonbright was young, to be readily impressed.  If his father had received his uncertainty with kindliness and had answered his hunger’s demand for enlightenment with arguments and reasoning, the crisis probably would have passed harmlessly.  His father had seen fit not to use diplomacy, but to assert autocratically the power of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated.  Bonbright’s individuality had thought to lift its head; it had been stamped back into its appointed, circumscribed place.

He was not satisfied with himself.  His time for protest had been when he answered his father’s challenge.  The force against him had been too great, or his own strength too weak.  He had not measured up to the moment, and this chagrined him.

“All I wanted,” he muttered, “was to know!”

His father called him, and he responded apathetically.

“Here are some letters,” said Mr. Foote.  “I have made notes upon each one how it is to be answered.  Be so good as to dictate the replies.”

There it was again.  He was not even to answer letters independently, but to dictate to his secretary words put into his mouth by Bonbright Foote, Incorporated.

“It will help you familiarize yourself with our routine,” said his father, “and your signature will apprise the recipients that Bonbright Foote VII has entered the concern.”

He returned to his desk and pressed the buzzer that would summon Ruth Frazer with book and pencil.  She entered almost instantly, and as their eyes met she smiled her famous smile.  It was a thing of light and brightness, compelling response.  In his mood it acted as a stimulant to Bonbright.