And you wouldn't take it. I knew,
though you didn't explain, that you feared it would interfere
with your studies. I was right?" Johnny nodded. "Yes. And your
last year at college was--was all I could wish. I see now that
you needed a blow in the face to wake you up--and you got it.
And you waked." The great engineer smiled with clean pleasure.
"I have had"--he hesitated--"I have had always a feeling of
responsibility to your mother for you--more than for the others.
You were so young when she died that you seem more her child.
I was afraid I had not treated you well--that it was my fault
if you failed." The boy made a gesture--he could not very well
speak. His father went on: "So when you refused the motor, when
you went into engineer's camp that first summer instead of going
abroad, I was pleased. Your course here has been a satisfaction,
without a drawback--keener, certainly, because I am an engineer,
and could appreciate, step by step, how well you were doing, how
much you were giving up to do it, how much power you were gaining
by that long sacrifice. I've respected you through these years of
commonplace, and I've known how much more courage it meant in a
pleasure-loving lad such as you than it would have meant in a
serious person such as I am--such as Ted and Harry are, to an
extent, also.
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