The Second Generation | Page 9

There's the one that was made by inheritance and by my surroundings as a boy--the one that's like him, the one that enables me to understand him. Then, there's this other that's been made since--in the East, and going round among people that either never knew the sort of life we had as children or have grown away from it. The problem is how to reconcile those two persons so that they'll stop wrangling and shaming each other. That's my problem, I mean. Father's problem--He doesn't know he has one. I must do as he wishes or I'll not be at all, so far as he is concerned."
Another and longer silence; then Adelaide, after an uneasy, affectionate look at his serious profile, said: "I'm often ashamed of myself, Artie--about father; I don't think I'm a hypocrite, for I do love him dearly. Who could help it, when he is so indulgent and when even in his anger he's kind? But you--Oh, Artie, even though you are less, much less, uncandid with him than I am, still isn't it more--more--less manly in you? After all, I'm a woman and helpless; and, if I seriously offend him, what would become of me? But you're a man. The world was made for men; they can make their own way. And it seems unworthy of you to be afraid to be yourself before _any_body. And I'm sure it's demoralizing."
She spoke so sincerely that he could not have resented it, even had her words raised a far feebler echo within him. "I don't honestly believe, Del, that my caution with father is from fear of his shutting down on me, any more than yours is," he replied. "I know he cares for me. And often I don't let him see me as I am simply because it'd hurt him if he knew how differently I think and feel about a lot of things."
"But are you right?--or is he?"
Arthur did not answer immediately. He had forgotten his horses; they were jogging along, heads down and "form" gone. "What do you think?" he finally asked.
"I--I can't quite make up my mind."
"Do you think I ought to drudge and slave, as he has? Do you think I ought to spend my life in making money, in dealing in flour? Isn't there something better than that?"
"I don't think it's what a man deals in; I think it's how he deals. And I don't believe there's any sort of man finer and better than father, Arthur."
"That's true," he assented warmly. "I used to envy the boys at college--some of them--because their fathers and mothers had so much culture and knowledge of the world. But when I came to know their parents better--and them, too--I saw how really ignorant and vulgar--yes, vulgar--they were, under their veneer of talk and manner which they thought was everything. 'They may be fit to stand before kings' I said to myself, 'but my father is a king--and of a sort they ain't fit to stand before.'"
The color was high in Del's cheeks and her eyes were brilliant. "You'll come out all right, Artie," said she. "I don't know just how, but you'll do something, and do it well."
"I'd much rather do nothing--well," said he lightly, as if not sure whether he was in earnest or not. "It's so much nicer to dream than to do." He looked at her with good-humored satire. "And you--what's the matter with your practising some of the things you preach? Why don't you marry--say, Dory Hargrave, instead of Ross?"
She made a failure of a stout attempt to meet his eyes and to smile easily. "Because I don't love Dory Hargrave," she said.
"But you wouldn't let yourself if you could--would you, now?"
"It's a poor love that lags for let," she replied. "Besides, why talk about me? I'm 'only a woman.' I haven't any career, or any chance to make one."
"But you might help some man," he teased.
"Then you'd like me to marry Dory--if I could?"
"I'm just showing you how vain your theorizing is," was his not altogether frank reply. "You urge me to despise money when you yourself--"
"That isn't fair, Arthur. If I didn't care for Ross I shouldn't think of marrying him, and you know it."
"He's so like father!" mocked Arthur.
"No, but he's so like _you_," she retorted. "You know he was your ideal for years. It was your praising him that--that first made me glad to do as father and mother wished. You know father approves of him."
Arthur grinned, and Del colored. "A lot father knows about Ross as he really is," said he. "Oh, he's clever about what he lets father see. However, you do admit there's some other ideal of man than successful workingman."
"Of course!" said Adelaide. "I'm not so silly and narrow as you try to