“Quite right. He should get a commission, he's gone ahead and done something worth while, why shouldn't he get what he wants? He's the biggest man in town to-night!” cried the boy with frank enthusiasm.
“He's a needy adventurer, Stephen, a man of no character; who has made a failure of his life solely because he was a man of no character.”
“Well, call him what you like; but it isn't helping me to think what I'll tell Aunt Virginia. That's the only thing I've got to worry over!”
“I tell you I can arrange it with McKeever!” insisted Benson. “You will just drop out. You are only committed in so far as you foolishly gave your promise to join his company; you were excited, carried away, and did not stop to think of the consequences. Now you have had time to cool off, and you are seeing in what direction your duty lies.”
“No, I'm not going to appear ridiculous, or as if I hadn't known my own mind!” said the boy doggedly, but secretly he was rather alarmed by the lawyer's opposition, and he feared that he might take steps in the matter which would humiliate him.
“I suppose you had rather appear merely ungrateful,” observed Benson contemptuously.
“Well, that's all in the family. Understand, please, you are not to see McKeever, and you are not to say anything to him if you chance to meet him. Please, now—I don't want you to! It's my affair—”
“He had no business to accept you.” Benson placed his hand on the young man's shoulder, and let it rest there with a kindly pressure. “Don't you be a fool, Stephen!” he urged gently. “All you have to think about is your Aunt Virginia, her feelings, her anxiety, and suffering, if you enlist!”
The boy rounded his shoulder at the touch, and looked up sullenly into his friend's face.
“What's the use of your working yourself into a state of mind over this! I tell you it's settled,” he declared, in a tone that he meant should stop further argument.