A general chorus forced him to a more public explanation. Holden College had offered him the chair held by his old professor of English. It meant more money—an unimportant matter; but, it meant the head of things, even though they were small things, and the chance to work under his own lead. He had not decided, although as it stood now he believed he would not go. The big university had its own attraction; one might meet an intolerable narrowness in a small place; and there were his “children,” about whom he felt more or less responsibility. To be sure, they could be taken care of.
“Go!” said Diccon with almost a snap. “Get out of this. You’re just a trailer here. Never get anything in your home town. Go away. Be a mystery. They’ll want you back some day, when others find out you’re worth wanting. Band waiting for you, too. My advice is to clear out. That’s what I ought to’ve done—long ago.”
The company fell to a discussion of why prophets and professors were honored in all cities save their own. Under cover of the general talk, Gorgas tapped Allen on the sleeve, her characteristic way of getting his attention, and spoke in her proper rôle, as old-time “pal.”
“Does this mean something for you, mon capitaine?”
“I suppose it does,” he replied. “Somehow I don’t seem to have any judgment in my own affairs. Prudence tells me to go; it is an opportunity; but I have almost made up my mind to plod along where I am.”
“Just what do you mean by opportunity?” she asked.
He explained. As he talked, the really flattering offer began to have some meaning for him. It seemed now as if he had been careless in letting the letter from the President go for three or four days without so much as a reply. But that’s the way he had always neglected his personal advancement.
“I don’t know whether to let you go or not,” Gorgas speculated. “Of course, you would be down Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter and vacations?”
“Sure to.”
“You might just as well go, for all I have seen of you lately,” she added. “Why did you suddenly give me up?”