Burke had made his own bed. He should lie in it. Deliberately he had chosen to cast aside the love and companionship of a devoted father at the beck of an almost unknown girl's hand. Should the father then offer again the once-scorned love and companionship? Had he no pride—no proper sense of simple right and justice? No self-respect, even?
It was thus, and by arguments such as these, that John Denby had lashed himself into the state of apparently cool, courteous indifference that had finally carried him successfully through the interview just closed.
For a long time John Denby sat motionless, his arms outflung across the letters that might have meant so much, but that did mean so little, to him—now. Then slowly he raised his head and fixed somber, longing eyes on the door that had so recently closed behind his son.
The boy was in there with Brett now—his boy. He was being told that his wages for the present were to be fifteen dollars a week, and that he was expected to live within his income—that the wages were really very liberal, considering his probable value to the company at the first. He would begin at the bottom, as had been planned years ago; but with this difference: he would be promoted now only when he had earned it. He would have been pushed rapidly ahead to the top, had matters been as they once were. Now he must demonstrate and prove his ability.
All this Brett was telling Burke now. Poor Burke! Brett was so harsh, so uncompromising. As if it weren't tough enough to have to live on a paltry fifteen dollars a week, without—
John Denby sighed and rose to his feet. Aimlessly he fidgeted about the spacious, well-appointed office. Twice he turned toward the door as if to leave the room. Once he reached a hesitating hand toward the push-button on this desk. Then determinedly he sat down and picked up one of his letters.
Brett was right. It was the best way; the only way. And it was well, indeed, that Brett had been delegated to do the telling. If it had been himself now—! Shucks! If it had been himself, the boy would only have had to look his reproach—and his wages would have been doubled on the spot! Fifteen dollars a week—Burke! Why, the boy could not— Well, then, he need not have been so foolish, so headstrong, so heartlessly disregardful of his father's wishes. He had brought it upon himself, entirely, entirely!
Whereupon, with an angry exclamation, John Denby shifted about in his hand the letter which for three minutes he had been holding before his eyes upside down.