The Second Generation | Page 9

thinking if you don't want Janet to be
very unhappy, and yourself, too."
"That sounds well," he retorted, "but you know better. Take our case,
for instance. Is it altogether love and affection that make us so cautious
about offending father?"
"Speak for yourself," said Adelaide. "_I'm_ not cautious."
"Do try to argue fair, even if you are a woman. You're as cautious in
your way as I am in mine."
Adelaide felt that he was offended, and justly. "I didn't mean quite what
I said, Artie. You are cautious, in a way, and sometimes. But often
you're reckless. I'm frightened every once in a while by it, and I'm
haunted by the dread that there'll be a collision between father and you.
You're so much alike, and you understand each other less and less, all
the time."
After a silence Arthur said, thoughtfully: "I think I understand him.
There are two distinct persons inside of me. 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