“I got a job in an iron foundry. I make forty dollars a week. And did you know, Madge—honestly—it looks bigger than the whole thousand your mother let me have the day we first met.”
Madelaine could not keep her pleasure from her voice.
“That’s simply fine, Gord! And what do your father and mother think about it?”
“Pop doesn’t say much. He’s too riled. You must have given him a pretty bad jolt when he came to see you. He always thought we Ruggleses were so absolutely perfect—it certainly took him down a peg, you bet. Mother—well, mother thinks I’m crazy—or at least father is. She thinks it’s pretty much another lark I’m on and in time I’ll get over it.”
“That’s not the right attitude, Gord. You’re doing a splendid thing.”
Gordon shrugged his shoulders.
“Mother’s got her notions. They’re pretty high-flown. We don’t see much of each other. I’m not living at home. I’m boarding with a fellow who works in the same office.”
“And you did this because your father thrashed you?”
“Not exactly, Madge. The fact that father—as much of a fop and a prig as he’s always been—could do it, started me thinking. Besides—anyway, Madge—honestly, I was tired of searching for thrills. I’d tried all the thrills till only one remained—Work. I wonder if you can understand?”
“Perhaps I understand, Gord, better than you think.”