“Please bear with me. It was only a little accident, as you say. The trouble of it is that it points the way that things are going. It could very easily have been a terrible accident—a dead girl under your speeding wheels, a charge of manslaughter instead of the good joke of being arrested for speeding, a term in the penitentiary instead of a fine. Ned, if you had killed the girl it would have been fully right and just for you to spend a good many of the best years of your life behind prison walls. I ask myself whether or not I would bring my influence to bear, in that case, to keep you from going there. I’m ashamed to say that I would.
“You may wonder about that. I would know, in my heart, that you should go there. I am not sure but that you should go there now, as it is. But I would also know that I have been criminal too—criminally neglectful, slothful, avoiding my obligations—just as much as you have been neglectful and slothful and avoiding your obligations toward the other residents of this city when, half-intoxicated, you drove your car at a breakneck pace through the city streets. I can’t accuse you without also accusing myself. Therefore I would try to keep you out of prison. In doing that, I would see in myself further proof of my old weakness—a weak desire to spare you when the prison might make a man of you.”
Ned recoiled at the words, but his father threw him a quick smile. “That cuts a little, doesn’t it? I can’t help it. Ned, your mother and I have always loved you too well. I suppose it is one of the curses of this age—that ease and softness have made us a hysterical, sentimental people, and we love our children not wisely, but too well. I’ve sheltered you, instead of exposing you to the world. The war did not stiffen you—doubtless because you were one of the millions that never reached the front.”
Ned leaned forward. “That wasn’t my fault,” he said with fire. “You know that wasn’t my fault.”
“I know it wasn’t. The fact remains that you lost out. Let me go on. I’ve made it easy for you, always, instead of bitter hard as I should have done. I’ve surrounded you with luxury instead of hardship. You’ve never done an honest day’s toil on earth. You don’t know what it is to sweat, to be so tired you can’t stand, to wonder where the next meal is coming from, to know what a hard and bitter thing life is!
“A girl, thrown on the pavement. A working girl, you said—probably homely, certainly not your idea of a girl. Perhaps, in your heart, you think it wouldn’t have much mattered if you had killed her, except for the awkwardness to you. She was just one of thousands. You, my son, are Ned Cornet—one of our city’s most exalted social set, one of our fashionable young clubmen.”
His tone had changed to one of unspeakable bitterness. Ned leaned forward in appeal. “That isn’t true,” he said sharply. “I’m not a damned snob!”
“Perhaps not. I’m not sure that I know what a snob is. I’ve never met one—only men who have pretended to be snobs to hide their fear of me. Let me say, though, Ned—whatever her lot, no matter how menial her toil, your life could be spared much easier than hers. It would be better that you should be snuffed out than that she should lose one of her working hands. Likely you felt superior to her as you drove her home; in reality you were infinitely inferior. She has gone much farther than you have. She knows more of life; she is harder and better and truer and worth more to this dark world in which we live. The world could ill afford to lose her, a fighter, a worker. It would be better off to lose you—a shirker, a slacker!
“I’m not accusing you. God knows the blame is on my own head. For my part I sprang from the world of toil—never do I go out into that society in which you move but that I thank God for the bitter toil I knew in youth. The reason is that it has put me infinitely above them. Such soft friends as you have wither before my eyes, knowing well that they can not meet me on even grounds; or else they take refuge in an air of conceit, a pretense of caste, that deceives themselves no more than it deceives me. They talk behind my back of my humble origin—fearfully clothing their own nakedness with the garments of worthy, fighting men who have preceded them—and yet their most exalted gates open before my knock. They dare not shut their doors to me. They treat me with the respect that is born of fear.
“That toil, that hard schooling, has made me what I am and given me the highest degree possible of human happiness. I find a satisfaction in living; I am able to hold my head up among men. I have health, the adoring love of a wonderful woman; I give service to the world. I can see old age coming upon me without regret, without vain tears for what might have been, without fear for whatever fate lies beyond. I am schooled for that fate, Ned. I’ve got strength to meet it. My spirit will not be buffeted willy-nilly in those winds that blow between the worlds. I am a man, I’ve done man’s work, and I can hold my place with other men in the great trials to come.