They shook hands, and he went out and tramped swiftly back to Amos’s house. There was a bounding elation in him; his head was among the stars.
CHAPTER V
WINT GOES HOME
WINT had thought of going to his father before he talked with Joan. He had tried advances now and then. Once he met the elder Chase on the street and stopped to talk with him, but his father passed by with a curt word of greeting. Another time, he saw Chase in the Journal office and went in. Chase and B. B. Beecham were talking together; but when Wint came in, his father got up and departed. Wint had said:
“Don’t let me drive you away. I just happened in.”
But the senior Chase said: “I was going, anyway,” and he went.
These incidents had roused the old resentment in Wint, but they had hurt him more than they had angered him. And the hurt persisted, while the resentment died. He found excuses for his father. He blamed himself; and he thought of ways of approaching the older man with some hope of success, and discarded them one by one.
Seeing Joan gave him new confidence in himself. She had let him come to see her; his father could do no less. Wint had no illusions as to Joan. He understood that she wanted to help him, wanted to be proud of him; but he understood also that he was on probation. He had not proved himself, in her eyes. That must come with time. They had talked frankly enough together; but—they had merely shaken hands at parting. That was all; that was all he had any right to expect. He could wait—and work—for the rest.
It was much that she had asked him to come to her. It meant that he was no longer outcast in her eyes; and the realization of this gave him new self-respect. It was this very self-respect that enabled him to humble himself to his father. A man can be servile without being self-respecting; but self-respect and true humility are synonyms. Each implies a true self-appraisal. Wint was a man, doing his work among men. He was also his father’s son; and it was as a son that he went to his father at last.
He found the elder Chase at home one evening. He had made sure that his father would be at home; but he was glad, when he got there, to find that his mother had gone next door. His mother could not understand; and no one else could talk much when she was about. Wint smiled when he thought of her; then his lips steadied. There was need for talk between his father and himself.
His father came to the door; and when he saw Wint, he stared at him coldly, and did not invite him to come in. Wint, with a sudden twinge of sorrow, saw that his father had changed and grown older in these last months. It seemed to Wint that his hair was thinner; there were new lines in his face; and his old benevolent condescension toward the world at large was gone. Wint said quietly: