Thrilled by the intensity of his own resolve, his mind began to work feverishly. He was no longer Tommy Leigh, but a man who did his thinking in staccato exclamations. He sat down at his father's desk and wrote what he could not have written the day before to save his life, for he now saw himself as the man in Dayton evidently saw him.
X-Y-Z, Dayton, Ohio:
Sir,—I graduated from college last week. I am a twenty-one-year-old man now. I will be Man until I shall be my own Man—and then perhaps yours also. Ego plus Knowledge equals Xnth. Thomas Leigh,
West Twelfth Street,
New York City.
He addressed the envelope, stamped it, and went out to drop it at the corner letter-box. He did not intend to lose time. He realized, as firmly as if he had been writing business aphorisms for a living, that time was money. And he needed both.
As soon as the letter was in the box he felt that his life's work had begun. This lifted a great weight from his chest. He now could breathe deeply. He did so. The oxygen filled his lungs. That brought back composure—he was doing all he could. The consciousness of this gave him courage.
Courage has an inveterate habit of growing. By feeding on itself it waxes greater, and thus its food-supply is never endangered. By the time Tommy Leigh returned to his house, once the abode of fear, he was so brave that he could think calmly. Thinking calmly is always conducive to thinking forgivingly, and forgiveness strengthens love.
“Poor old dad!” he said, and thought of how his father had loved his mother and what he had done for his only son. He would stick to his father through thick and thin.
That much settled, Tommy thought of himself. That made him think of the luncheon at Sherry's with Rivington Willetts. Marion Willetts would be there. For a moment he thought he must beg off. It was like going to a cabaret in deep mourning. But he reasoned that since he was going to Dayton, this would be his social swansong, the leave-taking of his old life, his final farewell to boyhood and Dame Pleasure.