"It's more or less of a gamble, I suppose?"

"All business is," said my father. "But I was flattering myself I had a son who had the grit to gamble for big stakes, and the brains to play the game."

"d.a.m.n," I said, getting up and walking about the room. My father began writing with an abominably scratchy nib.

"I ought to consult Helen," I turned and shot at him. He looked up from his letter and shrugged. The nib scratched on. "I told her I had excellent prospects when I married her--that Knowlton and I had made good with the Deep Harbor Manufacturing Company--" I paused in my argument, for my father appeared to be ignoring my remarks. He began another letter.

"Take it or leave it, Ted," he said after another silence. "All I ask is that you let me know definitely by lunch time. If you don't go, I must send another chemist to Berlin. I've made you the best offer in my power. A father can't do more than that."

"I wish you could see my point of view."

"I see it perfectly. Facts, however, overrule a point of view. If I had the means, I'd set you free this minute. As I haven't, there is nothing to argue about."

"Facts are d.a.m.ned unfair."

"They are," agreed my father.

"If I put it up to Helen, she'll tell me, of course, to stick by you, no matter what the sacrifice."

"In that case I should decide for myself, if I were you. It's a poor plan to try to shift your responsibilities on to some other person."

I had a suspicion my father was secretly laughing at me. I had a knack of making the worst possible showing in a crisis.

"I want to be fair to you and to Helen," I exclaimed.

"I'm not impressed by heroics," my father answered coldly. "I don't think either of you is being very hardly used--you have a comfortable home offered you and a good opportunity to work for. I am not asking favours--I'm giving them."

In one sense this was, of course, strictly true; yet there was something to be said on my side. Nothing was to be gained by stating it; I therefore kept silent. Ten minutes more must have pa.s.sed while I turned the problem over. My father imperturbably continued to write, address, and seal letters.

"Do you know which way I am going to decide?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

"Frankly," my father replied, "I don't. I'm not bluffing, Ted. I have never understood you very well. We've always been good chums; still, I have known that inwardly you go your own gait."

"I don't think I have ever disobeyed an important command."

"No, I don't believe you have--perhaps I have never asked you to do anything I didn't think was for the best. You didn't like being sent to Deep Harbor. Are you sorry now you went?"

"You can't take the credit to yourself for Helen and make that into an argument," I said. "Logic has its limits."

"I never went to college, so logic doesn't bother me," my father smiled.

It was the first time his face had relaxed since I came in.

"I'll go," I announced. My father opened a desk drawer and took out a bundle of papers.

"Here's your railway ticket--Harwich--Hook of Holland. You leave from Victoria. And here's your instructions and a letter of introduction to the Treptow Chemische Gesellschaft. When you know how to use the process you will be taught, come home. The quicker you learn, the quicker you get back. But you must know it thoroughly."

"Then you did think I'd accept," I remarked, rather indignant again.

"My dear boy, it never crossed my mind you would make a fuss. You took me entirely by surprise."

"I always seem to be wrong," I growled.

"But fortunately you often end up by doing right," my father smiled.

Helen was a brick. We talked the whole thing over, and she scolded me for having hesitated. Helen's scoldings were very affectionate affairs.

She smiled and a.s.sured me she would be all right. It might be the best way to win my mother over, and so on. Besides she would do a thousand things with Frances and would write me every day. At the end I rang for Chitty and told him to pack enough things for a month's journey.

"Will you be playing golf, sir?" he asked. Helen squealed with delight from the bed, where she was sitting with her feet tucked under her.

"No--business, Chitty. No riding clothes."

"Very good, sir. Thank you."

Helen saw me off the next evening, accompanied by the family. Her eyes were swimming, but she didn't let go. She was the last to kiss me, after a formal kiss from my mother and a huge puppy embrace from Frances.

"Don't worry, Ted darling. I promise not to be homesick. I love you."

A guard most unceremoniously slammed the door between us. The train pulled out. I sat and swore nearly all the way to Harwich.

The month did not pa.s.s quickly, although I worked hard, for long hours.

The process was intricate and complicated, quite beyond the range of anything I had done before. The German chemists did their best to help me, and at the same time made no secret of their contempt for my training.

Helen wrote amusing and cheerful letters, in which Leonidas and Frances chiefly figured. She spoke little of my mother, and only to rea.s.sure me that "everything was all right." I knew, therefore, that no progress had been made there. One piece of news, which, I thought might possibly come, did not. That had been one of my chief anxieties over leaving Helen.

I saw a lot of Berlin and went nightly to cheap seats at the theatre. My experiences of this city are not, however, germane to this narrative. It was not until the middle of the fifth week of my stay that the Treptow Chemische Gesellschaft notified me that I had now performed the process successfully several times and was in a position to return to instruct others. I made one of the quickest trips to a telegraph office known to German history. From there to my hotel and on to the Bahnhof I at least equalled any existing record. Twenty-four hours later Helen was in my arms on the platform of Victoria Station.

The family were at dinner when we reached Kensington. I hope Gabriel's trumpet is not timed for the dinner hour, for it is quite certain my mother will not allow even that to postpone her sitting down.

"Have you got it, Ted?" my father asked.

"What isn't in my head is in the bag upstairs," I replied.

Right after dinner Helen and I fled to our retreat, brutally closing the door in Frances's face. We sat on the floor before a fire and talked.

Berlin and London--we compared notes until after midnight. As we were about to go to bed, Helen whispered:

"There's one thing more, Ted, I haven't told you."

And then came the big news I had been expecting while away.

"I just had to tell you yourself, darling. I didn't want to write it."

G.o.d! If anything should happen to my beloved! and I went sick and cold at the thought. But she did not know this fear, for I held her tight, kissing her eyes. We sat on before the fire, far into the night, talking of the new future this revealed, of the new wonder that had come into our lives.

"Edward Jevons, Junior," Helen murmured as she fell asleep on my shoulder.