“Then why haven’t we got the moral courage to acknowledge it, and tell him so, and put an end to this awkward restraint, and this uncomfortable attitude on the part of all of us?”
Again the elder man hesitated.
“He may still be a radical,” he replied; “and I don’t care to humble myself before a person of that type. When this ultra-socialist germ once finds lodgment in a young man’s mind, it’s no easy task to displace it.”
“Well, I guess he’s got rid of it all right now.” The invalid raised himself on his elbow and added earnestly: “You know I believe McCormack’s one ambition to-day is to serve his country faithfully as a soldier.”
“That’s a laudable ambition, I’m sure.”
It was at this juncture that Lieutenant McCormack, having come to the hospital to visit the two or three of his men who were invalids there, was ushered by a nurse into the little apartment screened off for Barriscale. When he saw that the sick man had company he would have withdrawn, but Ben called to him.
“Come in,” he said. “Father’s here, and he wants to see you.”
So McCormack came in; not wholly at ease, to be sure, but with the dignified and courteous bearing of a soldier. The elder Barriscale reached out a friendly hand to him and he took it, and then passed around to the other side of the cot.
“Ben is right,” said the elder man. “I did want to see you, and I should not have left camp without having done so. I want to thank you for having notified me of my son’s illness.”