"Is it as bad as that—truly? And you told me nothing of it! Come—I want to know." There was a ring of authority in her voice as she leaned toward him, her great eyes full of pity and succor. "Is the world different from what you thought? Let me know—where does it hurt? That's what they say to children."
Challenged thus directly, he felt shame at the thought of confession equally direct. He would come to it only by winding ways, asserting at first that there was no trouble; then that the trouble was but a little one; and insisting at last that, though the trouble was great, it might have been greater.
Her eyes beat upon him insistently while she drove him to these admissions. Then she was eager with attention while he compelled himself to details. He told of his two weeks' humiliation at the school, not sparing himself, confessing his lack of power, and the pain this discovery had cost him. When he had finished, with a self-belittling shrug, she sat silent, bending forward, her hands loosely clasped, her eyes fixed away from him.
Now that it was over he felt a sudden lightening of his mood, a swift consciousness of reliance on the woman, a foreknowledge that her words would profit him. At last she brought her eyes upon him and cut to the heart of his woe with a single stroke.
"The thing is nothing in itself." He drew a long breath of relief. "It's in the way you take it. If it weakens you, it's bad. If it strengthens you, it's good. Call the thing 'failure' if you like—but what has it done to you?"
"Why, of course"—he broke off to laugh under her waiting look—"of course I'm still in the race. I see now that I haven't really doubted myself at all." He looked at her with sudden sharpness. "I'd be ashamed to doubt myself before you." He sprang to his feet in the excitement of this discovery and stood alertly before her.
"It doesn't mean anything, does it?" he went on quickly. "You believe in me?"
She laughed defensively. "I believe in you now. You look so much less like a whipped schoolboy."
"I won't forget again. That school isn't for me. I can do things those poor charcoal dusters won't do for years yet. I know that. Baldwin said they'd spoil me if I wasn't stubborn, and I was stubborn—I am. You believe I'm stubborn, don't you?"
She smiled assurance. "You have it—can you use it?"