Wallace sat and looked on in dumb sympathy while David continued his packing. At last it was all finished, and David sat down and looked out of the window into the darkness. While he waited thus he spoke only once.
“I wish you’d known him, Lester,” he said.
Soon he saw the lights of a motor-car coming down the avenue; the driver appeared and took the trunk; Wallace picked up the bag. At the foot of the stairs Mr. Dean was waiting. David caught Wallace’s hand and pressed it, unable to speak, and Wallace, equally inarticulate, returned the pressure. The next moment David and Mr. Dean were hidden within the automobile.
During most of the drive Mr. Dean occupied himself with advising David about the practical details of his journey. But, after all, his talk was chiefly to turn the current of David’s thoughts, for he had put down on a paper all the important items for the boy’s guidance. As David pocketed the memorandum that Mr. Dean finally gave him, he felt that he must seem unresponsive and untouched by so much kindness.
“O Mr. Dean, you don’t know how good to me I think you are! I—I wish my father could know!”
“My dear boy, it’s just that we all want to help when we see our friends in trouble.”
“Yes, but it’s the way you help. I shall always remember it.”
“I shall always remember your father, David. I have seen a great many fathers here with their sons, but never one whose interest and affection made quite such an appeal to me as his. It’s a long, long way back, but he made me think of my own father; I was about your age, David, when my father died.”
The automobile sped from the country road to the paved streets of the town and drew up before the station.