struck upon a sense of humor like a trivial twitter from the oboe
trickling through a lull in the swell of brasses and strings; but Hiram
Ranger had no sense of humor in that direction, had only his instinct
for the right and the wrong. The falseness, the absence of the quality
called "the real thing," made him bitter and sad. And, when his son
joined them and walked up and down with them, he listened with heavier
droop of face and form to the affected chatter of the young "man of the
world" and the old "_grande dame_" of Chicago society. They talked the
language and the affairs of a world he had never explored and had no
wish to explore; its code and conduct, his training, his reason and his
instinct all joined in condemning as dishonorable shirking of a man's
and woman's part in a universe so ordered that, to keep alive in it,
everyone must either work or steal.

But his boy was delighted with the conversation, with Mrs. Whitney, and,
finally, with himself. A long, hard ride had scattered his depression of
many weeks into a mere haze over the natural sunshine of youth and
health; this haze now vanished. When Mrs. Whitney referred to Harvard, he
said lightly, "You know I was plucked."

"Ross told me," said she, in an amused tone; "but you'll get back all
right next fall."

"I don't know that I care to go," said Arthur. "I've been thinking it
over. I believe I've got about all the good a university can do a man. It
seems to me a year or so abroad--traveling about, seeing the world--would
be the best thing for me. I'm going to talk it over with father--as soon
as he gets through being out of humor with me."

Hiram did not look at his son, who glanced a little uneasily at him as