“Oh—some.”
“Been here long?”
“Several days. I'm sailing Saturday.”
“Sailing?” Mr. Kane raised his eyebrows. “Where?”
“Home.”
“You decided not to consult me?”
“Oh.... Don't ride me, father! It's the next thing. I'm going back to college.”
“Oh—I see.” Mr. Kane looked over the menu, ordered his roast, and selected a red wine, cautioning the waiter to set it near the stove for five minutes. “It's wicked to heat Burgundy,” he said, when the waiter had gone, “but it's the only way you can get it served at the right temperature. I discovered that when we were here before.... I gather, my boy, that you've come to your senses in the matter of that little yellow girl.”
Rocky did not wince outwardly; he merely sat still. But his mind, at last, was active. And he knew—saw it in a flash—that no explanation he could possibly make, would be intelligible. You can not—yet—talk across the gulf between the worlds. It was his first intelligent glimpse of the tremendous fact that Doane had so long and so clearly felt and seen. So he merely—at last, when his father looked closely at him—inclined his head and said, huskily:
“I'm going to work out this college business'. That's my job clear enough.”