“Dad,” he spoke coaxingly, “you don't know what it means to me to do this thing alone. I want to try hard before I call for help. If I succeed alone, don't you see how I'll feel?”
The old man did not reply. Presently Tommy felt him draw in his breath; then Mr. Leigh nodded slowly.
“Very well, Thomas,” he said, in his old voice, steady, emotionless, the voice a ledger would use if it could speak.
“Thanks, dad. I'll go and dress now. I'm dining at the Willetts'.” And Tommy left his father.
Marion was as unfeignedly glad to see him as he was to see her, with this difference—that he did not know how he made her feel, but he knew she somehow made him feel like the Prodigal Son, only, of course, he was not down and out—quite the contrary. Through the dinner it was made plain to Tommy that he was one of the Willetts family. At the end, as he did not smoke, he followed Marion into the library.
She assured herself that he had a comfortable chair by insisting upon his taking her own favorite, found another for herself, and then she said to him, eagerly:
“Tell me all about it!”
Tommy, who had spoken of nothing else at the table but his Dayton experiences, said, simply: “I am sorry I didn't send you the long letter I wrote you when I thought I was fired.”
“No; you didn't keep your promise. I expected to hear all about it. I knew you'd much rather write to Rivington than to me; but I also thought”—she paused, and then looked him frankly in the eyes—“I thought you would be so lonely and homesick that you'd like to write to all your friends, to remind yourself that you had them. I suppose you were too busy?” She looked as if she expected him to agree with her. There was but one excuse, and she herself had given it to him and he accepted it.
“Of course, I had to hustle,” he said; and then he blushed to think of the easy time he had in Dayton. Everybody expected him to be a slave, a sweat-shop worker, and pitied him accordingly. The reaction made him say, “I'll tell you the whole story, if you don't think it will bore you.”