“Don't be so confoundedly superior,” cried Rivington. “You needn't think you can make me believe that your experimental boss has put a new brain in your coco.”
“No, the old brain was all right.”
“What?” almost shrieked Rivington.
“I'll tell you what he has done, though,” said Tommy, seriously. “He has given me new eyes to see with.”
“When they begin to think they see things,” said Rivington, solemnly, “it's a sign a mighty intellect is tottering.” Then Rivington, seeing that Tommy was still serious, became serious in turn. “Tom, that's what I've always said. If they'd only make the work interesting they'd make you think business was your pet elective and unappreciated geniuses would gladly put in ten horns a day. But what do they give you instead? A last year's advertisement of a special sale of cod-liver oil, and you trying to work off four inches of waist-line. I am going to tell my honored father to take a tip from Thompson. There's Marion!” And he rose to his feet that she might see him.
She came toward them, smiling. “How do you do, Tommy?” She shook hands man fashion, grasping Tommy's hand firmly and looking straight into his eyes.
The sight of her filled Tommy with pleasure. Her presence made itself felt to him also in exquisitely subtle ways. It brought to him a wonderful sense of companionship, that provided him with a receptacle wherein to he might pour out torrentially whatever it was that his soul craved to give forth. And he was leaving all these things to undertake the work in Dayton which had seemed so important to him! He wondered whether he would be satisfied to live in New York if things were different—a life like Rivington's, for instance? And he was instantly conscious that he was older and wiser than Rivington.
But even if he could—and he wasn't sure he could—he really couldn't. And the reason he could not was a reason that Marion must never know. But he had to tell her something.
“I didn't think it would come so hard to return to Dayton,” he said. But it was the thought of what he could not tell her that made his voice serious.
“It's too bad!” said Marion. She looked so sympathetic that Tommy's self-pity was at once aroused.