"Then—there is——" Somehow an explanation seemed imperative to this man who was making life possible for him. There had never been any intimacy before, but something compelled it now; "a—a girl, sir. She helped me—earn money. She's—different from me—she's—quality, but she'd like to know, too."
Levi shifted his newspaper so that it walled Sandy's grim face from view.
"What's to hinder you making quality of yourself?" he asked. He was a man that liked his beneficiaries to succeed, and while Sandy interested him, in spite of himself, he disliked the boy's humility. There was something final and foreordained about it, and unless it were discouraged it might prevent what Markham was beginning to very much desire.
"Quality, sir, is not made. It—is!"
Levi grunted, and Bob, paying a visit to the room on sufferance, snarled resentfully.
"You cut that out, boy!" Markham snapped; "in Yankeeland it doesn't go. Massachusetts gives a good many things besides an education for good honest work: it gives opportunity for the man to grow in every human soul. We don't apologize for ourselves by digging up our ancestors—we only exhume them to back us up. By the time you go home you can stand up to the best of them in your hills—if it's in you to stand. It all lies with you. Now write your letters and leave all foolishness out. Afterward I have a plan to propose."
So Sandy painfully scratched his two notes off and sealed and addressed them. Then he waited for Markham's further notice.
The day was cool and fine, but the heated air of the room made an open window necessary. By that Sandy sat and looked out upon the big, seething city of which he was so horribly afraid. It smothered and crowded him; its noises and smells sickened him. The few excursions he had made with his projectors had left him pale and panting. He made no complaints—he realized that he was on the wheel, and must cling how and as he might, but he shrank mentally at every proposition that he should leave his room. The crowds of people appalled him and he yearned for the open and the sight of a hill. He dreamed vividly of Lost Mountain, and he always saw it now enveloped in mist—a mist that he felt confident would never again lift for him. It was homesickness in the wide, spiritual sense that overpowered Sandy Morley at that time.
"Sandford, are you strong enough to talk business?"
"Yes, sir, I reckon I am."