on on Jack's entrance. He had a desire to grip the brown
hand that was on the edge of the desk fingering the rose stem; but the
lateness of the demonstration, its futility in making up for his previous
neglect, and some subtle influence radiating from Jack's person,
restrained him. It was apparent that Jack might sit on in silence
indefinitely; in a desert silence.

"Well, Jack, I hear you had a ranch," said the father, with a faint
effort at jocularity.

"Yes, and a great crop of alfalfa," answered Jack, happily.

"And it seems that all the time you were away you have never used your
allowance, so it has just been piling up for you."

"I didn't need it. I had quite sufficient from the income of my
mother's estate."

"Yes--your mother--I had forgotten!"

"Naturally, I preferred to use that, when I was of so little service to
you unless I got strong, as you said," Jack said, very quietly.

Now came another silence, the silence of luminous, unsounded depths
concealing that in the mind which has never been spoken or even taken
form. Jack's garden of words had dried up, as his ranch would dry up for
want of water. He rose to go, groping for something that should express
proper contrition for wasted years, but it refused to come. He picked up
the rose and the hat, while the father regarded him with stony wonder
which said: "Are you mine, or are you not? What is the nature of this
new strength? On what will it turn?"

For Jack's features had set with a strange firmness and his eyes, looking
into his father's, had a steady light. It seemed as if he might stalk out
of the office forever, and nothing could stop him. But suddenly he
flashed his smile; he had looked about searching for a talisman and found
it in the rose, which set his garden of words abloom again.

"This room is so bare it must be lonely for you," he said. "Wouldn't it
be a good idea to cheer it up a bit? To have this rose in a vase on your
table where you could see it, instead of riding about in an empty
automobile box?"

"Why, there is a whole cold storage booth full of them down on the first
floor!" said the father.

"Yes, I saw them in their icy prison under the electric light bulbs. The
beads of water on them were like tears of longing to get out for the joy
of their swan song under a woman's smiles or beside a sick bed," said
Jack, in the glow of real enthusiasm.

"Good line for the ad writer!" his father exclaimed, instinctively. "You
always