Shepherd, surprised and ashamed of his outburst, sought and clutched Bruce’s hand.
“Steady, boy!” said Bruce gently. “You’ll take the job and you’ll go into it with all the pep you can muster! It offers you a bigger chance than the thing you’ve been doing. All kinds of people carry their troubles to a trust company. Such institutions have a big benevolent side,—look after widows and orphans and all that sort of thing. If you want to serve humanity you couldn’t put yourself in a better place! I’m serious about that. And with Carroll there you’ll be treated with respect; you can raise the devil if anybody tries any foolishness! Why, your father’s promoting you—showing his confidence in a pretty fine way. He might better have told you of his plans earlier—I grant that—but he probably thought he’d save it for a surprise. It was pretty decent of him to sell you back your stock. A mean, grasping man would have kept it and swiped the profit. You’ve got to give him credit for trying to do the square thing by you.”
“It was a slap in the face; he meant to humiliate me!” cried Shepherd stubbornly.
“All right; assume he did! But don’t be humiliated!”
“You’d stand for it? You wouldn’t make a row?” demanded Shepherd quaveringly.
“No: decidedly no!”
“Well, I guess you’re right,” Shepherd replied after a moment’s silence. “It doesn’t seem so bad the way you put it. I’m sorry I’ve kept you so long. I’ll never forget this; you’ve been mighty kind.”
“I think I’ve been right,” said Bruce soberly.
He was thinking of Franklin Mills—his father and Shepherd’s. There was something grotesque in the idea that he was acting as a conciliator between Franklin Mills and this son who had so little of the Mills iron in his blood. The long story had given him still another impression of Mills. It was despicable, his trampling of Shepherd’s toys, his calm destruction of the boy’s dreams. But even so, Bruce felt that his advice had been sound. A complete break with his father would leave Shepherd helpless; and public opinion would be on the father’s side.
Shepherd struck a match and looked at his watch.