"I won't stay for any nonsense. I mean to talk with him to-night."
"Talk with yourself, first, Rod; find yourself out, and then talk it all out honestly with him."
Which advice—the first clause of it—Rodney proceeded instantly to follow; he did not say another word all the way over the Mill Dam and up Beacon Hill, and Aunt Euphrasia let him blessedly alone; one of the few women, as she was, capable of doing that great and passive thing.
When he had left her at her door, and driven his horse to the livery stable, he went round to his father's rooms and took tea with him.
The meal over, he pushed back his chair, saying, "I want a talk with you, father. Can I have it now? I must be back at Cambridge by ten."
Mr. Sherrett looked in his son's face. There was nothing there of uncomfortableness,—of conscious bracing up to a difficult matter. He repressed his first instinctive inquiry of "No scrape, I hope, Rod?" The question was asked and answered between their eyes.
"Certainly, my boy," he said, rising. "Step in there; the man will be up presently to take away these things."
The door stood open to an inner apartment; a little study, beyond which were sleeping and bath-rooms.
Rodney stepped upon the threshold, leaning against the frame, while Mr. Sherrett went to the mantel, found a match and a cigar, cut the latter carefully in two, and lit one half.
"The thing is, father," said Rodney, not waiting for a formal beginning after they should be closeted and seated,—"I've been thinking that I'd better not go abroad, if you don't mind. I'm rather waking up to the idea of earning my own way first,—before I take it. It's time I was doing something. If I use up a year or more in travelling, I shall be going on to twenty-two, you see; and I ought to have got ahead a little by that time."