"Mother, I've had a letter from Mr. Van Ostend--"

"Oh, Champney!" There was the joy of antic.i.p.ation in her voice.

"Now, mother, don't--don't expect anything," he pleaded, "for you'll be no end cut up over the whole thing. Now, listen." He read the letter; the tone of his voice indicated both disgust and indignation.

"Now, look at that!" He burst forth eruptively when he had finished.

"Here we've been banking on an offer for some position in the syndicate, at least, something that would help clear the road to Wall Street where I should be able to strike out for myself without being dependent on any one--I didn't mince matters that day of the dinner when I told him what I wanted, either! And here I get an offer to go to Europe for five years and study banking systems and the Lord knows what in London, Paris, and Berlin, and act as a sort of super in his branch offices. Great Scott!

Does he think a man is going to waste five years of his life in Europe at a time when twenty-four hours here at home might make a man! He's a donkey if he thinks that, and I'd have given him credit for more common sense--"

"Now, Champney, stop right where you are. Don't boil over so." She repressed a smile. "Let's talk business and look at matters as they stand."

"I can't;" he said doggedly; "I can't talk business without a business basis, and this here,"--he shook the letter much as Rag shook a slipper,--"it's just slop! What am I going to do over there, I'd like to know?" he demanded fiercely; whereupon his mother took the letter from his hand and, without heeding his grumbling, read it carefully twice.

"Now, look here, Champney," she said firmly; "you must use some reason.

I admit this isn't what you wanted or I expected, but it's something; many would think it everything. Didn't you tell me only yesterday that in these times a man is fortunate to get his foot on any round of the ladder--"

"Well, if I did, I didn't mean the rung of a banking house fire-escape over in Europe." He interrupted her, speaking sulkily. Then of a sudden he laughed out. "Go on, mother, I'm a chump." His mother smiled and continued the broken sentence:

"--And that ten thousand fail where one succeeds in getting even a foothold--to climb, as you want to?"

"But how can I climb? That's the point. Why, I shall be twenty-six in five years--if I live," he added lugubriously.

His mother laughed outright. The splendid specimen of health, vitality, and strength before her was in too marked contrast to his words.

"Well, I don't care," he muttered, but joining heartily in her laugh; "I've heard of fellows like me going into a decline just out of pure homesickness over there."

"I don't think you will be homesick for Flamsted; I saw no traces of that malady while you were in New York. On the contrary, I thought you accepted every opportunity to stay away."

"New York is different," he replied, a little shamefaced in the presence of the truth he had just heard. "But, mother, you would be alone here."

"I'm used to it, Champney;" she spoke as it were perfunctorily; "and I am ambitious to see you succeed as you wish to. I want to see you in a position which will fulfil both your hopes and mine; but neither you nor I can choose the means, not yet; we haven't the money. For my part, I think you should accept this offer; it's one in ten thousand. Work your way up during these five years into Mr. Van Ostend's confidence, and I am sure, _sure_, that by that time he will have something for you that will satisfy even your young ambition. I think, moreover, it is a necessity for you to accept this, Champney."

"You do; why?"

"Well, for a good many reasons. I doubt, in the first place, if these quarries can get under full running headway for the next seven years, and even if you had been offered some position of trust in connection with them, you haven't had an opportunity to prove yourself worthy of it in a business way. I doubt, too, if the salary would be any larger; it is certainly a fair one for the work he offers." She consulted the letter. "Twelve hundred for the first year, and for every succeeding year an additional five hundred. What more could you expect, inexperienced as you are? Many men have to give their services gratis for a while to obtain entrance into such offices and have their names, even, connected with such a financier. This opportunity is a business a.s.set. I feel convinced, moreover, that you need just this discipline."

"Why?"

"For some other good reasons. For one, you would be brought into daily contact with men, experienced men, of various nationalities--"

"You can be that in New York. There isn't a city in the world where you can gain such a cosmopolitan experience." He was still protesting, still insisting. His mother made no reply, nor did she notice the interruption.

"--Learn their ways, their point of view. All this would be of infinite help if, later on, you should come into a position of great responsibility in connection with the quarry syndicate.--It does seem so strange that hundreds will make their livelihood from our barren pastures!" She spoke almost to herself, and for a moment they were silent.

"And look at this invitation to cross in his yacht with his family!

Champney, you know perfectly well nothing could be more courteous or thoughtful; it saves your pa.s.sage money, and it shows plainly his interest in you personally."

"I know; that part isn't half bad." He spoke with interest and less reluctance. "I saw the yacht last spring lying in North River; she's a perfect floating palace they say. Of course, I appreciate the invitation; but supposing--only supposing, you know,"--this as a warning not to take too much for granted,--"I should accept. How could I live on twelve hundred a year? He spends twice that on a cook. How does he think a fellow is going to dress and live on that? 'T was a tight squeeze in college on thirteen hundred."

His mother knew his way so well, that she recognized in this insistent piling of one obstacle upon another the budding impulse to yield. She was willing to press the matter further.

"Oh, clothes are cheaper abroad and living is not nearly so dear. You could be quite the gentleman on your second year's salary, and, of course, I can help out with the interest on the twenty thousand. You forget this."

"By George, I did, mother! You're a trump; but I don't want you to think I want to cut any figure over there; I don't care enough about 'em. But I want enough to have a ripping good time to compensate for staying away so long."

"You need not stay five consecutive years away from home. Look here, Champney; you have read this letter with your eyes but not with your wits. Your boiling condition was not conducive to clear-headedness."

"Oh, I say mother! Don't rap a fellow too hard when he's down."

"You're not down; you're up,"--she held her ground with him right st.u.r.dily,--"up on the second round already, my son; only you don't know it. Here it is in black and white that you can come home for six weeks after two years, and the fifth year is shortened by three months if all goes well. What more do you want?"

"That's something, anyway."

"Now, I want you to think this over."

"I wish I could run down to New York for a day or two; it would help a lot. I could look round and possibly find an opening in the direction I want. I want to do this before deciding."

"Champney, I shall lose patience with you soon. You know you, can't run down to New York for even a day. Mr. Van Ostend states the fact baldly: 'Your decision I must have by telegraph, at the latest, by Thursday noon.' That's day after to-morrow. 'We sail on Sat.u.r.day.' Mr. Van Ostend is not a man to waste a breath, as you have said."

Champney had no answer ready. He evaded the question. "I'll tell you to-morrow, mother. It's late; you mustn't sit up any longer." He looked at his watch. "One o'clock. Good night."

"Good night, Champney. Leave your door into the hall wide open; it's so close."

She put out her light and sat down by the window. The night was breathless; not a leaf of the elm trees quivered. She heard the Rothel picking its way down the rocky channel of The Gore. She gave herself up to thought, far-reaching both into the past and the future. Soon, mingled with the murmur of the brook, she heard her son's quiet measured breathing. She rose, walked noiselessly down the hall and stood at his bedroom door, to gaze--mother-like, to worship. The moonlight just touched the pillow. He lay with his head on his arm; the full white chest was partly bared; the spare length of the muscular body was outlined beneath the sheet. Her eyes filled with tears. She turned from the door, and, noiselessly as she had come, went back to her room and her couch.

How little the pending decision weighed on his mind was proven by his long untroubled sleep; but directly after a late breakfast he told his mother he was going out to prospect a little in The Gore; and she, understanding, questioned him no further. He whistled to Rag and turned into the side road that led to the first quarry. There was no work going on there. This small ownership of forty acres was merged in the syndicate which had so recently acquired the two hundred acres from the Googe estate. He made his way over the hill and around to the head of The Gore. He wanted to climb the cliff-like rocks and think it out under the pines, landmarks of his early boyhood. He picked his way among the boulders and ma.s.ses of sheep laurel; he was thinking not of the quarries but of himself; he did not even inquire of himself how the sale of the quarries might be about to affect his future.

Champney Googe was self-centred. The motives for all his actions in a short and uneventful life were the spokes to his particular hub of self; the tire, that bound them and held them to him, he considered merely the necessary periphery of constant contact with people and things by which his own little wheel of fortune might be made to roll the more easily.

He was following some such line of thought while turning Mr. Van Ostend's plan over and over in his mind, viewing it from all sides. It was not what he wanted, but it might lead to that. His eyes were on the rough ground beneath him, his thoughts busy with the pending decision, when he was taken out of himself by hearing an unexpected voice in his vicinity.

"Good morning, Mr. Googe. Am I poaching on your preserve?"

Champney recognized the voice at once. It was Father Honore's hailing him from beneath the pines. He was sitting with his back against one; a violin lay on its cover beside him; on his lap was a drawing-board with rule and compa.s.s pencil. Champney realized on the instant, and with a feeling of pleasure, that the priest's presence was no intrusion even at this juncture.

"No, indeed, for it is no longer my preserve," he answered cheerily, and added, with a touch of earnestness that was something of a surprise to himself, "and it wouldn't be if it were still mine."

"Thank you, Mr. Googe; I appreciate that. You must find it hard to see a stranger like myself preempting your special claim, as I fancy this one is."

"It used to be when I was a youngster; but, to tell the truth, I haven't cared for it much of late years. The city life spoils a man for this. I love that rush and hustle and rubbing-elbows with the world in general, getting knocked about--and knocking." He laughed merrily, significantly, and Father Honore, catching his meaning at once, laughed too. "But I'm not telling you any news; of course, you've had it all."

"Yes, all and a surfeit. I was glad to get away to this hill-quiet."

Champney sat down on the thick rusty-red matting of pine needles and turned to him, a question in his eyes. Father Honore smiled. "What is it?" he said.

"May I ask if it was your own choice coming up here to us?"

"Yes, my deliberate choice. I had to work for it, though. The superior of my order was against my coming. It took moral suasion to get the appointment."