Youth Challenges | Page 7

... They
resent your having the power of life and death over them. ..."
The girl stood looking from one man to the other; from Dulac, tall,
picturesquely handsome, flamboyant, conscious of the effect of each
word and gesture, to Bonbright, equally tall, something broader, boyish,
natural in his unease, his curiosity. She saw how like he was to his
slender, aristocratic father. She compared the courtesy of his manner
toward Dulac with Dulac's studied brusqueness, conscious that the boy
was natural, honest, really endeavoring to find out what this thing was
all about; equally conscious that Dulac was exercising the tricks of the
platform and utilizing the situation theatrically. Yet he was utilizing it
for a purpose with which she was heart and soul in sympathy. It was
right he should do so. ...
"I wish we might sit down and talk about it," said Bonbright. "There
seem to be two sides in the works, mine and father's--and the men. I
don't see why there should be, and I'd like to have you tell me. You see,
this is my first day in the business, so I don't understand my own side
of it, or why I should have a side--much less the side of the men. I
hadn't imagined anything of the sort. ... I wish you would tell me all
about it. Will you?"
The boy's tone was so genuine, his demeanor so simple and friendly,

that Dulac's weapons were quite snatched from his hands. A crowd of
the men he was sent to organize was looking on--a girl was looking on.
He felt the situation demanded he should show he was quite as capable
of courtesy as this young sprig of the aristocracy, for he knew
comparisons were being made between them.
"Why," said he, "certainly. ... I shall be glad to."
"Thank you," said Bonbright. "Good night." He turned to the girl and
lifted his hat. "Thank YOU," said he, and eyes in which there was no
unfriendliness followed him as he walked away, eyes of men whom
Dulac was recruiting for the army of the "other side" of the social
struggle.
He hurried home because he wanted to see his father and to discuss this
thing with him.
"If there is a conflict," he said to himself, "in our business, workingmen
against employer, I suppose I am on the employer's side. THEY have
their reasons. We must have our reasons, too. I must have father
explain it all to me."
His mother called to him as he was ascending the stairs:
"Be as quick as you can, Bonbright. We have guests at dinner to-
night."
"Some one I know?"
"I think not," His mother hesitated. "We were not acquainted when you
went to college, but they have become very prominent in the past four
years. ... Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Lightener--and their daughter,"
Bonbright noticed the slight pause before the mention of the daughter,
and looked quickly at his mother. She looked as quickly away.
"All right, mother," he said.
He went to his room with another disturbance added to the many that

disquieted him. Just as certainly as if his mother had put it into words
he knew she had selected this Lightener girl to be Mrs. Bonbright Foote
VII--and the mother of Bonbright Foote VIII.
"Confound it," he said, "it's started already. ... Dam Bonbright Foote
VIII!"

CHAPTER III
Bonbright dressed with a consciousness that he was to be on exhibition.
He wondered if the girl had done the same; if she, too, knew why she
was there and that it was her duty to make a favorable impression on
him, as it was his duty to attract her. It was embarrassing. For a young
man of twenty-three to realize that his family expects him to make
himself alluring to a desirable future wife whom he has never seen is
not calculated to soothe his nerves or mantle him with calmness. He
felt silly.
However, here HE was, and there SHE would be. There was nothing
for it but to put his best foot forward, now he was caught for the event,
but he vowed it would require more than ordinary skill to entrap him
for another similar occasion. It seemed to him at the moment that the
main object of his life thenceforward would be, as he expressed it, "to
duck" Miss Lightener.
When he went down the guests had arrived. His mother presented him,
using proudly her formula for such meetings, "Our son." Somehow it
always made him feel like an inanimate object of virtue--as if she had
said "our Rembrandt," or, "our Chippendale sideboard."
Mrs. Lightener did not impress him. Here was a quiet, motherly
personality, a personality to grow upon one through months and years.
At first meeting she