"But you are surely not going to leave before Commencement?"
"Why not? I have got all I can out of college. I can't afford to waste a month for nothing."
"But you are first-honor-man, Braine!"
"Yes, so I hear. Give that to some one who cares for it. I don't."
The next morning Edgar Braine quitted the village on foot, and without returning to Jefferson, passed out of the little world of youth into the great world of manhood. His equipment consisted of his character, his education, and fifty dollars.
He thought the character a good one then. He revised his opinion as he paced the little room in Thebes, and remembered.
IV.
The youth's sole thought when he walked out into the world was to find opportunities—for exactly what, he neither knew nor greatly cared. He knew himself possessed of power, and he sought a chance to make it felt. He was ambitious beyond measure, but he believed his ambition to be safely under a curb bit. He would achieve great things, but their greatness should minister to the good of his fellow men.
His selfishness was of that kind which looks for its best satisfaction in self-sacrifice. He would spend himself in the service of mankind, and take his reward in seeing the results of his labor. He had been bred to high conceptions of human conduct, and had filled his mind with exalted principles.