"That's the girl I've been working for ever since," said Swazey. "The bravest little person I ever struck, and the squarest. She was waiting in a restaurant when I happened to drop in, standing on her own feet, asking no favor. She's out of that now, thank God! I've sent her off to school."
Dink turned to him with a start, amazed at the matter-of-fact way in which Swazey announced it.
"To school—" he stammered. "You've sent her."
"Sure. Up to a convent in Montreal. She'll finish there when I finish here."
"Why?" said Stover, too amazed to choose his methods of inquiry.
"Because, my boy, I'm going out to succeed, and I want my wife to know as much as I do and go with me where I go."
The two sat silently, Swazey staring at the tintype with a strange, proud smile, utterly unconscious of the story he had told, Stover overwhelmed as if the doors in a great drama had suddenly swung open to his intruding gaze.
"She's the real student," said Swazey fondly. "She gets it all—all the romance of the big things that have gone on in the past. By George, the time'll come when we'll get over to Greece and Egypt and Rome and see something of it ourselves." He put the photographs in his pocketbook and rose, standing, legs spread before the fire, talking to himself. "By George, Dink, money isn't what I'm after. I'm going to have that, but the big thing is to know something about everything that's real, and to keep on learning. I've never had anything like these evenings here, browsing around in the good old books, chatting it over with old Pike—he's got imagination. Give me history and biography—that inspires you. Say, I've talked a lot, but you led me on. What's your story?"
"My story?" said Stover solemnly. He thought a moment and then said: "Nothing. It's a blank and I'm a blank. I say, Swazey, give me your hand. I'm proud to know you. And, if you'll let me, I'd like to come over here oftener."
He went from the room, with a sort of empty rage, transformed. Before him all at once had spread out the vision of the nation, of the democracy of lives of striving and of hope. He had listened as a child listens. He went out bewildered and humble. For the first time since he had come to Yale, he had felt something real. His mind and his imagination had been stirred, awakened, hungry, rebellious.