!" Sanford ejaculated. "It's the women who don't have children who
always attend 'mothers' meetings.' Of course you know just how to handle
a son."

"If you hadn't thought I had some ideas, I don't suppose I should have
had the pleasure of this interview."

"Then you think he ought to be allowed to go into business?"

"This proposition seems now to have become of secondary importance. The
main issue is whether or not a boy twenty-three years old is to be
allowed to express his ideas when they differ from his father's. Allen,
apparently, has settled the matter without any advice from either of
us."

"You don't know what that boy is to me." Sanford's voice broke a little
in spite of him.

"I can imagine," Gorham replied, feelingly. "I know what he would be to
me if he were mine."

"He's all I have in the world, Robert. I've had to be father and mother
to him. I've given him the best education money could buy, I've sent him
to Europe to get that foreign finish every one talks about; and now he
won't do what my heart is set on."

"If the boy wants to go into business, why don't you make a place for
him in your own concern? That's where he ought to be--to take the
responsibilities off your shoulders, one by one, and to continue your
name."

"Put Allen in my furnaces?" Sanford demanded, his choleric attitude
beginning to return. "How can you make a gentleman in my furnaces? Do
you suppose I'd buy a twenty-thousand-dollar painting and hang it up in
the cellar? No, sir; I mean to make something out of that boy better
than his father is, and that isn't the place to do it. But in the
diplomatic service they're all gentlemen--that's why I want to put him
there."

"And if you can't have your own way you prefer to lose the boy
altogether?"

"Oh, he'll come back, the young cub. He'll see which side his bread is
buttered on. It'll be a long time before he can earn the five hundred a
month I give him for an allowance, and he knows it. He'll be back."

"I'm not so sure," Gorham said, seriously.

"You don't think--" Sanford began, showing signs of alarm.

"Would you in his place?"

"That's nothing to do with it; he's only a boy."

"Did you--in his place?"

Sanford looked up quickly. "I had more cause," he replied. "My father
was unreasonable; his isn't."

"Allen's ideas on that subject may differ from yours. Now, if you want
my advice, here it is: Go back to that boy. Tell him you're ashamed to
have lost your temp