"Yes! Yes, but I—why, I only gabbled. I don't see how——"
"You did. Came to me later, what you must mean. Is it a call?"
Eyes wet, face shining and troubled and amazed, Reuben turned to him and started once or twice to speak, then said only: "Yes."
"You can—oh, damn my head!—you can be certain?"
"I'm—certain. I did go to see Mr. Welland again yesterday. He spoke of an apprenticeship."
"Oh.... Well—well, good, if it's what you wish. What about Harvard, Ru?"
"I don't know." Reuben sat on the floor by Ben's bed, a motion of effortless grace that made Ben's head throb to watch it. "I must speak to Uncle John of course. Maybe I can go to the college and study with Mr. Welland at the same time. There'll be the summers."
Ben groped at it uneasily, with some small confusion of envy. "Pills—pills and sick people and——"
Reuben shook his head. "It's not like that, Ben. I mean, that is only one part of it, and for the rest—I can't explain it because I don't know enough, but of a sudden, after a long time of not knowing what I desired, there is this, and I do seem to be certain."
"But for myself, I've not found it."