Archibald looked down almost guiltily as he spoke.
Morgan had a consciousness of the strange, complete reversion of the position the years had brought about.
"I could never, never consent not to live by my own labour," he said, giving utterance to what, at the moment, he intensely felt to be the one essential condition of existence for him.
"Come now, surely we can get over that difficulty," said Archibald eagerly. "I take it it is immaterial to you what work you do, so long as it is of a kind in which you can employ your faculties. After all, the principal point in your present occupation is the discipline it affords and the habits of mind it is forming in you; all of which could be employed in some other direction. It would simply be a matter of your mastering a different set of facts for the different employment, which you could do very quickly. Why not accept a position in the bank? That would afford you an honorable livelihood, and it would help you to be near us. Then perhaps some day, when you feel you have lived down the old mistakes, you may be inspired to take up your pen again. Mistakes! Why should they kill for ever the first fresh ambition of your life? Mistakes! I made them, too, when I was young. So has every man who is worth his salt. Of course, there's one mistake you can't undo—you don't mind my alluding to it, Morgan. But if you continue to face it as you are doing now—my God, Morgan! you are suffering!"
Archibald groaned heavily, then checked himself and put on as cheerful a face as he could muster.
"I meant to have proved to you," he continued, "that you scarcely take a scientific—I had almost said an intelligent—view of your function in life. The desire to live by your own labour is actuated by the very proper feeling that you ought to be doing your duty in the social organism. Your present work is equal to, say, three respectable pairs of boots a week. That, you will admit, is a fair measure of your utility. Now, if by becoming a great poet, you could give pleasure and delight to thousands of your fellow-men, it seems to me your utility would be fairly represented by quite a considerable number of pairs of boots, and very respectable ones, too."
"How it would have delighted me to hear you argue like that when I was a boy," almost whispered Morgan. "Forgive me, father," he added immediately. "I did not mean any reproach."
"I admit my not arguing in that way at the time was one of my mistakes. But I am sure you will yet be a great man. For the present, however, I shall be content with your assurance that you'll come back to the bank eventually. Gradually, perhaps, you'll fall thence into the vocation you were born for."
"I think I can promise so far as the bank is concerned," said Morgan, slowly.
"Thank you," said his father and bent down to warm his hands in the flames, so that the light shone on his face.