"Lyman, would you believe that I weakened? I put both my hands on her hair and I snatched a kiss from her, but she looked up at me and I weakened; I couldn't ask her. She wasn't scared; she was astonished; and when she looked down, I kissed the back of her neck, standing there in full view of the world, and she shivered as if she was cold, but her face was scarlet."
"Do you call it weakening when you grab a woman and kiss her? I should think that was rather strengthening."
"I didn't find out how she stood, that is, I did not get it in words, so I must have weakened. But I think it's all right. After dinner, while we were in the 'big room,' she showed me a photograph of a yap and said that it was Cousin Jerry. 'Permit me,' said I, bowing, and I sailed the picture out into the yard where the dog lay asleep in the sun. And there it lay, with the June bugs buzzing about it, till I relented and went after it. I weakened in going after it, but she pouted and I gave in. I reckon that after all, it's better not to be so headlong. Many a fellow would have rushed the thing and spoiled it right there. I am learning patience from you, Lyman."
"Well, don't keep on learning, or you'll get the worst of it. A woman will pardon a thing that's rash where she would look with scorn upon a gentle stupidity. You bite like a black bass and I'm a sucker; you leap up into the sunshine, and I lie under a rotting log. I am inclined to think, old boy, that there is a good deal of what they call the chump about me. You have gone to Pitt's and said more than you intended to say. And look at me: I have not said half of what I ought to have said. You know where to find your girl, but I have let mine go away. And I know now that she went away in disgust. However, I ought not to say that. It might imply that she was impatient with me and that would mean that she was waiting for me to say something, when in fact I don't believe she thinks of me at all, except as her protector and friend."
Warren sat nibbling at the stem of a corn-cob pipe. He stretched forth his legs and chewed upon the stem till it cracked between his teeth.
"This disposition to under-estimate yourself is where the whole trouble lies," said Warren. "It is the only weakness I have ever been able to find in your character. Don't you think it must be on account of some sort of work you have done? Haven't you at some time been in a position where everybody could come along and boss you?"
"I waited in a dining-room to pay my way through college. And you have struck it. Yes, sir, you've struck it on the top of the head. If a man has once stood as a servant, he is, if at all sensitive, ever afterward afflicted with a sort of self-repression. It is a sense of independence that makes the cow-boy aggressive; it is the wear of discipline that makes the regular soldier, long after quitting the army, appear humble. To wear a white apron and to carry a bowl of soup across a dining-room, one must not have had a high spirit or must have stabbed it. I stabbed mine."
"And yet you are as proud as the devil," said Warren.
"Yes, and I am not afraid of a pistol, but I fancy that anyone could drive me with a teaspoon. If I am ever the father of a boy I will teach him to work, to cut down trees, to dig ditches, to do anything rather than to wait on another man."
"But you don't regret having made the sacrifice to get the education, do you?"