u can't live down. Now I suppose if Gorham had told you that
we'd had our lunch, the fact that your father was starving to death
wouldn't be accepted as evidence worthy of consideration."

Allen laughed as he pulled out his watch, his mind easier and his heart
lighter than it had been for months.

"I had forgotten all about that, and it's after four o'clock. Come on
out with me, and I'll give you a revised version of the 'fatted calf'
story."

"You think it is the return of the prodigal father, do you?"

"I hope we are both prodigals, you dear old pater," Allen replied,
seriously; "I hope we both need each other so much that we never can
exist alone again."

"All right; but we'd better go easy with the calf, for I've accepted a
dinner invitation for us both to-night."

"You have?" Allen asked, disappointed that their visit was to be
interrupted. "Where?"

"At Gorham's."

"I couldn't go there again, pater," he protested quickly. "He's just
asking me because he wants you."

"No; he wants to talk with you, especially."

"With me?" Allen's face sobered. "He thinks he was harsh the other
night. I would rather not open up the whole subject again. There are
special reasons. Please go without me."

"You don't want to do anything which will make him think worse of you
than he does now, do you?"

"No," was the frank reply, into which a genuine note of sorrow entered.

"Then we'll dine with him, as he asks us to. Now lead on to that calf,
but make it a little one."

* * * * *

Allen found himself the only one at the dinner-table who seemed to be
laboring under any restraint. Eleanor and Alice were in better spirits
than he had seen them for months, Gorham was an ideal host, conversing
with Sanford and with Allen upon lighter topics in a way which seemed to
show entire forgetfulness of what had gone before. It seemed almost
heartless to the boy to find these friends, so dear to him, able to
conduct themselves in so matter-of-fact a manner while he was in the
grip of his own life tragedy. But he could not blame them. He had
assumed much which they had never granted. This last dinner together,
made possible by his father's presence in New York, was intended as a
lesson to him, and as Mr. Gorham had planned it, then it must be for his
good. He would play his part, and, concealing the pain it cost him, he
entered into the conversation with an abandon which surprised them all.

It was