But to-night as the father's eyes rested upon his son who stood gazing into and through the blazing fire there were to be seen only pride and wistful love. But as the son turned his eyes toward his father the veil fell and the eyes that answered were quiet, shrewd, keen and chiefly kind.
The talk had passed beyond the commonplace of the day's doings. They were among the big things, the fateful thing—Life and Its Worth, Work and Its Wages, Creative Industry and Its Product, Capital and Its Price, Man and His Rights.
They were frank with each other. The war had done that for them. For ever since the night when his eighteen-year-old boy had walked into his den and said, “Father, I am eighteen,” and stood looking into his eyes and waiting for the word that came straight and unhesitating, “I know, boy, you are my son and you must go, for I cannot,” ever since that night, which seemed now to belong to another age, these two had faced each other as men. Now they were talking about the young man's life work.
“Frankly, I don't like it, Dad,” said the son.
“Easy to see that, Jack.”
“I'm really sorry. I'm afraid anyone can see it. But somehow I can't put much pep into it.”
“Why?” asked the father, with curt abruptness.
“Why? Well, I hardly know. Somehow it hardly seems worth while. It is not the grind of the office, though that is considerable. I could stick that, but, after all, what's the use?”
“What would you rather do, Jack?” enquired his father patiently, as if talking to a child. “You tried for the medical profession, you know, and—”
“I know, I know, you are quite right about it. You may think it pure laziness. Maybe it is, but I hardly think so. Perhaps I went back to lectures too soon after the war. I was hardly fit, I guess, and the whole thing, the inside life, the infernal grind of lectures, the idiotic serious mummery of the youngsters, those blessed kids who should have been spanked by their mothers—the whole thing sickened me in three months. If I had waited perhaps I might have done better at the thing. I don't know—hard to tell.” The boy paused, looking into the fire.