He began to read law systematically. Dick Hoover’s father was interested, helped him. The elder Hoover told Wint’s father one day:
“Chase, your boy is going to make a lawyer before he’s through.”
The senior Chase looked at Hoover, half minded to resent the fact that his son had been mentioned in his presence. But—the old wound was healing. Men no longer took occasion to remind him of last fall’s election with a jeer in their eyes. His conditional alliance with Kite had languished, because Wint had made no move to make the town dry. Chase hated Amos Caretall as ardently as ever; but he could not hate his son. That is not the way with fathers. He loved Wint; he had been, for some time, secretly proud of him.
He said to Hoover: “He’s smart enough, if he sticks to it.”
“He’s sticking,” Hoover told Wint’s father.
Winthrop Chase, Senior, nodded indifferently, hiding the light in his eyes. “He never stuck to anything before,” he said, and turned away.
He thought of telling Wint’s mother, that night, but did not do so. When he spoke of Wint to her, it precipitated one of her endless remarks. They wearied him. But he had to tell some one, so he told Hetty Morfee, when he went to the kitchen for a drink of water. Hetty was washing dishes at the time, and she stopped with a plate in one hand and a dish-rag in the other, and listened, and said with a cheerful wistfulness in her voice:
“Wint’s smart, sir. You’ll be proud of him.”
Chase was proud of him, but he would not admit it to himself, much less to Hetty.
“He’s smart enough,” he told her. “But he’s ... He’s....”