Youth Challenges Part 26

She knew how to protect herself, and would attend to the matter without a.s.sistance.

"You will never see that girl again," she said, as though the saying of it concluded the episode.

Bonbright was silent.

"You will promise me NOW that this disgraceful business is ended.

NOW.... I am waiting."

"Mother," said Bonbright, "you have no right to ask such a thing. Even if I didn't love Ruth, I have pledged my word to her..."

Mrs. Foote uttered an exclamation indicative of her disgust.

"Pledged your word!... You're a silly boy, and this girl has schemed to catch you and has caught you.... You don't flatter yourself that she cares for you beyond your money and your position.... Those are the things she had her eye on. Those are what she is trading herself for.... It's scandalous. What does your pledged word count for in a case like this?... Your pledged word to a scheming, plotting, mercenary little wretch!"

"Mother," said Bonbright, in a strained, tense voice, "I don't want to speak to you harshly. I don't want to say anything sharp or unkind to you--but you mustn't repeat that.... You mustn't speak like that about Ruth."

"I shall speak about her as I choose..."

"Georgia!..." said Mr. Foote, warningly.

"If you please, Bonbright." She put him back in his place. "_I_ will settle this matter with our son--NOW."

"It is settled, mother," said Bonbright.

"Suppose you should be insane enough to marry her," said Mrs. Foote.

"Do you suppose I should tolerate her? Do you suppose I should admit her to this house? Do you suppose your friends--people of your own cla.s.s--would receive her--or you?"

"Do you mean, mother," said Bonbright, his voice curiously quiet and calm, "that you would not receive my wife here?"

"Exactly that. And I should make it my business to see that she was received nowhere else.... And what would become of you? Everyone would drop you. Your wife could never take your position, so you would have to descend to her level. Society would have none of you."

"I fancy," said Bonbright, "that we could face even that--and live."

"More than that. I know I am speaking for your father when I say it. If you persist in this we shall wash our hands of you utterly. You shall be as if you were dead.... Think a moment what that means. You will not have a penny. We shall not give you one penny. You have never worked.

And you would find yourself out in the world with a wife to support and no means of supporting her. How long do you suppose she would stay with you?... The moment she found she couldn't get what she had schemed for, you would see the last of her.... Think of all that."

"I've thought of all that--except that Ruth would care for my money.

... Yesterday I left the office determined never to go into it again. I made up my mind to look for a job--any job--that would give me a living--and freedom from what Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, means to me. I was ready to do that without Ruth.... But the family has some claims to me. I could see that. So I came back. I was going to tell father I would go ahead and do my best.... But not because I wanted to, nor because I was afraid."

"You see," his mother said, bitingly, "it lasted a whole day with you."

"Mother!"

Bonbright turned to his father. "I am going to marry Ruth. That cannot be changed. Nothing can alter it.... I am ready to come back to the office--and be Bonbright Foote VII... and you can't guess what that means. But I'll do it--because it seems to be the thing I ought to do.... I'll come back if--and only if--you and mother change your minds about Ruth.... She will be my wife as much as mother is your wife, and you must treat her so. She must have your respect. You must receive her as you would receive me... as you would have been glad to receive Hilda Lightener. If you refuse--I'm through with you. I mean it.... You have demanded a promise of me. Now you must give me your promise--to act to Ruth as you should act toward my wife.... Unless you do the office and the family have seen the last of me." He did not speak with heat or in excitement, but very gravely, very determinedly. His father saw the determination, and wavered.

"Georgia," he said, again.

"No," said Mrs. Foote.

"The Family--the business." said Mr. Foote, uncertainly.

"I'd see the business ended and the Family extinct before I would tolerate that girl.... If Bonbright marries her he does it knowing how I feel and how I shall act. She shall never step a foot in this house while I live--nor afterward, if I can prevent it. Nor shall Bonbright."

"Is that final, mother?... Are you sure it is your final decision?"

"Absolutely," she said, her voice cold as steel.

"Very well," said Bonbright, and, turning, he walked steadily toward the door.

"Where are you going?" his father said, taking an anxious step after his son.

"I don't know," said Bonbright. "But I'm not coming back."

He pa.s.sed through the door and disappeared, but his mother did not call after him, did not relent and follow her only son to bring him back.

Her face was set, her lips a thin, white line.

"Let him go," she said. "He'll come back when he's eaten enough husks."

"He's GOT to come back.... We've got to stop this marriage. He's our only son, Georgia--he's necessary to the Family. HIS son is necessary."

"And hers?" she asked, with bitter irony.

"Better hers than none," said Mr. Foote.

"You would give in.... Oh, I know you would. You haven't a thought outside of Family. I wasn't born in your family, remember. I married into it. I have my own rights in this matter, and, Family or no Family, Bonbright, that girl shall never be received where I am received....

NEVER."

Mr. Foote walked to the window and looked out. He saw his son's tall form pa.s.s down the walk and out into the street--going he did not know where; to return he did not know when. He felt an ache in his heart such as he had never felt before. He felt a yearning after his son such as he had never known. In that moment of loss he perceived that Bonbright was something more to him than Bonbright Foote VII--he was flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood. The stifled, cramped, almost eliminated human father that remained in him cried out after his son....

CHAPTER XVIII

As Bonbright walked away from his father's house he came into possession for the first time of the word RESPONSIBILITY. It was defined for him as no dictionary could define it. Every young man meets a day when responsibility becomes to him something more than a combination of letters, and when it comes he can never be the same again. It marks definitely the arrival of manhood, the dropping behind of youth. He can never look upon life through the same eyes. Forever, now, he must peer round and beyond each pleasure to see what burden it entails and conceals. He must weigh each act with reference to the RESPONSIBILITY that rests upon him. Hitherto he had been swimming in life's pleasant, safe, shaded pools; now he finds himself struggling in the great river, tossed by currents, twirled by eddies, and with no bottom upon which to rest his feet. Forever now it will be swim--or sink....

To-morrow Bonbright was to undertake the responsibilities of family headship and provider; to-night he had sundered himself from his means of support. He was jobless. He belonged to the unemployed.... In the office he had heard without concern of this man or that man being discharged. Now he knew how those men felt and what they faced.

Realization of his condition threw him into panic. In his panic he allowed his feet to carry him to the man whose help had come readily and willingly in another moment of need--to Malcolm Lightener.

The hour was still early. Lights shone in the Lightener home and Bonbright approached the door. Mr. Lightener was in and would see him in the office. It was characteristic of Lightener that the room in the house which was peculiarly his own was called by him his office, not his den, not the library.... There were two interests in Lightener's life--his family and his business, and he stirred them together in a quaintly granite sort of way.

For the second time that evening Bonbright stood hesitating in a doorway.

"Well, young fellow?" said Lightener. Then seeing the boy's hesitation: "Come in. Come in. What's happened NOW?"

"Mr. Lightener," said Bonbright, "I want a job. I've got to have a job."