There were to be no stories of Little Rivers at dinner; no questions asked about desert life. This chapter of Jack's career was a past rung of the ladder to John Wingfield, Sr. who was ever looking up to the rungs above. The magnetism and charm with which he won men to his service now turned to the immediate problem of his son, whom he was to refashion according to his ideas.
"Are you ready to settle down?" he asked, half fearful lest that scene in the drawing-room might have wrought a change of purpose.
In answer he was seeing another Jack; a Jack relaxed, amiable, even amenable.
"If you have the patience," said Jack. "You know, father, I haven't a cash-register mind. I'm starting out on a new trail and I am likely to go lame at times. But I mean to be game."
He looked very frankly and earnestly into his father's eyes.
"Wild oats sown! My boy, after all!" thought the father. "Respected his mother! Well, didn't I respect mine? Of course—and let him! It is good principles. It is right. He has health; that is better than schooling."
In place of the shock of the son's will against his, he was feeling it as a force which might yet act in unison with his. He expanded with the pride of the fortune-builder. He told how a city within a city is created and run; of tentacles of investment and enterprise stretching beyond the store in illimitable ambition; how the ball of success, once it was set rolling, gathered bulk of its own momentum and ever needed closer watching to keep it clear of obstacles.
"And I am to stand on top like a gymnast on a sphere or be rolled under," thought Jack. "And I'll have cloth of gold breeches and a balancing pole tipped with jewels; but—but—"
"A good listener, and that is a lot!" thought the father, happily.
Jack had interrupted neither with questions nor vagaries. He was gravely attentive, marveling over this story of a man's labor and triumph.