he four years had been
the goal to which he had been urging forward. Now that it was here he
seemed to have gone beyond it, somehow, and found it to be but a little
detail by the way, a very small matter not worth stopping and making so
much fuss about. Of course, if Gila had loved him; if she had been going
to be there watching for him when he came forward to take his diploma;
if she were to be listening when he delivered that oration upon which he
had spent so much time and for which he received so much commendation,
that would have meant everything to him a few brief days ago--of course,
then it would have been different! But as it was he wondered that
everybody seemed so much interested in things and took so much trouble
for a lot of nonsense.

Courtland was surprised to see his father come into the great hall just
as he went up on the platform with his class. He hadn't expected his
father. He was a busy man who did not get away from his office often.

It touched him that his father cared to come. He changed his plans and
made it possible to take the train home with him after the exercises,
instead of waiting a day or two to pack up, as he had expected to do.
The packing could wait awhile. So he went home with his father.

They had a long talk on the way, one of the most intimate that they had
ever had. It appeared during the course of conversation that Mr.
Courtland had heard of the offer made to his son by Ramsey Thomas, and
that he was not unfavorable to its acceptance.

"Of course, you don't really need to do anything of the sort, you know,
Paul," he said, affably. "You've got what your mother left you now, and
on your twenty-fifth birthday there will be two hundred and fifty
thousand coming to you from your Grandfather Courtland's estate. You
could spend your life in travel and study if you cared to, but I fancy,
with your temperament, you wouldn't be quite satisfied with an idle life
like that. What's your objection to this job?"

Courtland told the whole story carefully, omitting no detail of the
matter concerning conditions at the factory, and the matters at which he
was not only expected to wink, but also sometimes to help along by his
influence. He realized, as he told it, that his father would look at the
thing fairly, but very differently.

"Well, after all," said the father, comfortably settling himself to
another cigar, "that's all a matter of sentiment. It doesn't do to be
too squeamish, you kno