“You thought, dad,” cried Barry, “and—forgive me, dad—I thought too. I ought to have known you better.”
“And I, you, my son.”
They shook hands with each other in an ecstasy of jubilation.
“My God, I'm glad that's through,” said the older man. “We were both fools, Barry, but thank God that horror is past. Now tell me all about everything—your trip, your plans. Let's have a good talk as we always do.”
“Come on then, dad,” cried Barry. “Let's have an eat first. By Jove, I feel a thousand years younger. I go to the M. O. to-morrow for an examination.”
“He is quite unusually severe in his interpretation of the regulations, I understand,” said his father. “He is turning men down right and left. He knows, of course, that there are plenty to choose from. But there is no fear of your fitness, Barry.”
“Not much,” said Barry, with a gay laugh.
Never had they spent a happier evening together. True, the spectre of war would thrust itself upon them, but they faced it as men—with a full appreciation of its solemn reality, but without fear, and with a quiet determination to make whatever sacrifice might be demanded of them. The perfect understanding that had always marked their intercourse with each other was restored. The intolerable burden of mutual uncertainty in regard to each other's attitude toward the war was lifted. All shadows that lay between them were gone. Nothing else really mattered.
The day following, Barry received a rude shock. The M. O., after an examination, to his amazement and dismay, pronounced him physically unfit for service.
“And why, pray?” cried his father indignantly, when Barry announced the astounding report. “Is the man a fool? I understood that he was strict. But you! unfit! It is preposterous. Unfit! how?”