Youth Challenges Part 40

"Come over here." Lightener jerked his head toward a private spot for conversation. "About you and that little girl," he said.

"I would rather not talk about it," said Bonbright, slowly.

"But I'm going to talk about it. It's nonsense...."

Bonbright looked very much like his father; tall, patrician, coldly dignified. "Mr. Lightener," he said, "it is a thing we will not mention--now or later." Seven generations contributed to that answer and to the manner of it. It was final. It erected a barrier past which even Malcolm Lightener could not force his way, and Lightener recognized it.

"Huh!..." he grunted, nonplused, made suddenly ill at ease by this boy.

For a moment he looked at Bonbright, curiously, appraisingly, then turned on his heel and walked away.

"Young spriggins put me in my place," he said to Mrs. Lightener that evening. "I wish I knew how to do it--valuable. Made me feel like he was a total stranger and I'd been caught in his hen house.... That Bonbright Foote business isn't all bad by a darn sight."

From that day Bonbright tried to work himself into forgetfulness. Work was the only object and refuge of his life, and he gave himself to it wholly. It was interesting work, and it kept him from too much thinking about himself.... If a man has ability and applies himself as Bonbright did, he will attract notice. In spite of his ident.i.ty Bonbright did attract notice from his immediate superiors. It was more difficult for him, being who he was, to win commendation than it would have been for an unmarked young man in the organization. That was because even the fairest-minded man is afraid he will be tempted into showing favoritism--and so withholds justice.... But he forced it from his laborers--not caring in the least if he had it or not. And word of his progress mounted to Malcolm Lightener.

His craving for occupation was not satisfied with eight hours a day spent in the purchasing department. It was his evenings that he feared, so he filled them with study--study of the manufacture of the automobile. Also he studied men. Every noon saw him in the little hash house; every evening, when he could arrange it so, saw him with some interested employee, boss, department boss, or somebody connected with Malcolm Lightener's huge plant, pumping them for information and cataloguing and storing it away in his mind. He tried to crowd Ruth out of his mind by filling it so full of automobile there would be no room for her.... But she hid in unexpected crannies, and stepped forth to confront him disconcertingly.

Gradually the laboring men changed their att.i.tude toward him and tolerated him. Some of them even liked him. He listened to their talk, and tried to digest it. Much he saw to call for his sympathy, much that they considered vital he could not agree with; he could not, even in a majority of things, adapt his point of view to theirs. For he was developing a point of view.

On that evening when he had gone down to see what a mob was like he had no point of view, only curiosity. He had leaned neither toward his father's striking employees nor against them.... His att.i.tude was much the same now--with a better understanding of the problems involved. He was not an ultracapitalist, like his father, nor a radical like Dulac.... One thing he believed, and that was in the possibility of capital and labor being brought to see through the same eyes. He believed the strife between them, which had waged from time immemorial, was not necessary, and could be eliminated.... But as yet he had no cure for the trouble.

He did not lean to socialism. He was farther away from that theory than he was from his father's beliefs. He belonged by training and by inheritance to the group of employers of labor and utilizers of capital.... Against radicalism he had a bitter grievance. Radicalism had given him his wife--for reasons which he heard expressed by laboring men every day. He had no patience with fanaticism; on the other hand, he had little patience with bigotry and intolerance. His contact with the other side was bringing no danger of his conversion.

... But he was doing what he never could have done as heir apparent to the Foote dynasty--he was a.s.serting in thought his individuality and forming individual opinions.... His education was being effectively rounded out.

News of the wrecking of Bonbright's domestic craft came to his father quickly, carried, as might have been antic.i.p.ated, by Hangar.

"Your son is not living with his wife, Mr. Foote," Rangar announced.

"Indeed!" said Mr. Foote, concealing both surprise and gratification under his habitual mask of suave dignity. "That, I fear, was to have been antic.i.p.ated.... Have you the particulars?"

"Only that she is living in their apartment, and he is boarding with one of the men in his department at Lightener's."

"Keep your eye on him, Rangar--keep your eye on him. And report."

"Yes, sir," said Rangar, not himself pleased by the turn affairs had taken, but resolved to have what benefit might lie thereabouts. His resentment was still keen to keep him snapping at Bonbright's heels.

The breach between himself and his son had been no light blow to Mr.

Foote. It threatened his line. What was to become of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, with no heir to hand the business over to when his hands could drop it? He wanted his son, not as a father wants his son, but because a Bonbright Foote VII was requisite. He had hoped for this thing that had happened; indeed, had felt confident it would happen, and that he would have Bonbright back unenc.u.mbered, purged of nonsense.

He spoke of it with satisfaction to his wife when he returned to his home that afternoon to take up the important matter of adding to the ma.n.u.script of his philosophical biography of the Marquis Lafayette.

"Perhaps I should see Bonbright," he suggested.

"No," said Mrs. Foote. "He must come to you. He's got to have all his wildness crushed out of him. He'll come. He must have had enough of it before this."

But Bonbright did not come, showed no signs of coming, and Mr. Foote grew impatient, so impatient that he disregarded his wife's advice. He could not bring his pride to allow him to seek out Bonbright in person, but sent Rangar as his amba.s.sador.

Rangar found Bonbright in his room, reading a book devoted to the ailments of the internal-combustion engine, and acquitted himself of his mission with that degree of diplomacy which his desire for success dictated.

"Well?" said Bonbright, as the door opened to admit the amba.s.sador.

"Your father sent me, Mr. Foote."

"Yes."

"He has heard that--er--the marriage which caused your--er--estrangement has ended as he feared."

Bonbright arose slowly and walked toward Rangar, who appeared in two minds whether to remain or to depart to other places.

"Tell my father," Bonbright said, "that I can appreciate his satisfaction. Tell him also that if he has anything to say to me to say it in person.... That is all."

"Your father--"

"That is all," repeated Bonbright, and Rangar made up his mind. He slammed the door after him.

In the morning he reported to Mr. Foote, who compressed his lips at the recitation of his son's words. Let his son come to him, then, when he had eaten his fill of husks.

But Bonbright did not come. After several days had elapsed Mr. Foote considered his duty, and interpreted it to impel him to call in person upon his son--clothed in dignity and with the demeanor of outraged parenthood. Mrs. Foote was not privy to the project.

He met his son descending the steps of the house where he boarded.

Bonbright could not have evaded his father if he would. He stopped and waited for his father to speak.

"I have come to talk to you, Bonbright," he said, severely.

"Very well, sir," Bonbright said.

"I have come, not from inclination or delight in an interview which must be distasteful to both of us, but because I believe it my duty to point out the thanklessness of your conduct and to see if you cannot be brought to a proper sense of your obligations."

"Our ideas of my obligations are rather far apart, sir."

"They shouldn't be. You're a mere boy--my son. You should derive your ideas from me until you are capable of formulating correct ideas yourself."

"I'm afraid we can never agree on that," said Bonbright, patiently.

"Your marriage has ended the way such marriages are fated to end," said Mr. Foote.

"We will not discuss that, please," said Bonbright.

"You made your own bed--"

"And am not complaining about the discomfort of it."

"It is essential that you return to your duty. Your unpleasant experience is over. You are old enough to understand your position as my son, and the responsibilities and duties of it. You are Bonbright Foote VII and the future head of our family. I am being very patient and lenient with you.... You have defied me openly, but I am willing to overlook that, and I am sure your mother will overlook your conduct toward her, providing you return to your place in a frame of mind proper for my son. I think you understand what that is."

"Perfectly, sir. It means to be jammed back in a mold that will turn me out to the family pattern. It means a willingness to give up thinking for myself and accept YOUR thoughts and shape my life by them. It means being a figurehead as long as you live and a replica of yourself when you are gone. That's it, isn't it?"

"That is it," said Mr. Foote, shortly. "You are rid of that woman. ...

I am willing to give you another chance."