The professor sat down in his chair and took up the poker quite carefully.
"She is at a party to-night," he said, poking the fire, "though it is late in the season for parties. She generally is at a party—oftener than not she is at two or three parties."
"Then she must be well," suggested Tredennis.
"Oh, she is well," the professor answered. "And she gets a good deal out of life. She will always get a good deal out of it—in one way or another."
"That is a good thing," remarked Tredennis.
"Very," responded the professor, "if it's all in the one way and not in the other."
He changed the subject almost immediately, and began to discuss Tredennis' own affairs. His kindly interest in his career touched the younger man's heart. It seemed that he had taken an interest in him from the first, and, silent as he had been, had never lost sight of him.
"It used to strike me that you would be likely to make something of your life," he said, in his quiet, half-abstracted way. "You looked like it. I used to say to myself that if you were my son I should look forward to being proud of you. I—I wish you had been my son, my boy."
"If I had been," answered Tredennis, earnestly, "I should have felt it a reason for aiming high."
The professor smiled faintly.