"I prefer not—to discuss it, sir."
"And I prefer TO discuss it… Do you fancy you can drag the name of Foote through the daily press as though it were that of some dancing girl or political mountebank, and have no reference made of it? Tell me exactly what happened last night—and why it was permitted to happen."
"Father—" Bonbright's voice was scarcely audible, yet it was alive and quivering with pain. "I cannot talk to you about last night."
The older man's lips compressed. "You are a man grown—are supposed to be a man grown. Must I cross-examine you as if you were a sulking schoolboy?"
Bonbright was not defiant, not sulkily stubborn. His night's experiences had affected, were affecting him, working far-reaching changes in him, maturing him. But he was too close to them for their effect to have been accomplished. The work was going on each moment, each hour. He did not reply to his father immediately, but when he did so it was with a certain decision, a firmness, a lack of the old boyishness which was marked and distinct.
"You must not cross-question me. There are things about which one's own father has not the right to ask…. If I could have come to you voluntarily—but I could not. In college I have seen fellows get into trouble, and the first thing they thought of was to go to their fathers with it… It was queer. What happened last night happened to ME. Possibly it will have some effect on my family and on the name of Foote, as you say… But it happened to ME. Nobody else can understand it. No one has the right to ask about it."
"It happened to YOU! Young man, you are the seventh Bonbright Foote—member of a FAMILY. What happens to you happens to it. You cannot separate yourself from it. You, as an individual, are not important, but as Bonbright Foote VII you become important. Do you imagine you can act and think as an entity distinct from Bonbright Foote, Incorporated?… Nonsense. You are but one part of a whole; what you do affects the whole, and you are responsible for it to the shops."
"A man must be responsible to himself," said Bonbright, fumbling to express what was troubling his soul. "There are bigger things than family…"
His father had advanced to the desk. Now he interrupted by bringing his hand down upon it masterfully. "For you there is no bigger thing than family. You have a strange idea. Where did you get it? Is this sort of thing being taught in college to-day? I suppose you have some notion of asserting your individuality. Bosh! Men in your position, born as you have been born, have no right to individuality. Your individuality must express the individuality of your family as mine has done, and as my father's and HIS father's did before me… I insist that you explain fully to me what occurred last night."
"I am sorry, sir, but I cannot."