repression. Remember that--with repression. Many an artist has missed
greatness by mistaking license for originality and producing debauch. I
don't want you to do that. I want you to stay here by yourself for a
while and work; not with your hands, necessarily, but with your mind.
Get your perspective of life now. Most of the pathetic
'what-might-have-beens' in the lives of men and women are due to
misplaced proportions that made them struggle greatly for little
things."

Lewis looked up and nodded.

"Dad, you've got a knack of saying things that are true in a way that
makes them visible. When you talk, you make me feel as though some one
had drawn back the screen from the skylight."

Leighton shrugged his shoulders. For a long moment he was silent; then
he said:

"A life like mine has no justification if it can't let in light, even
though it be through stained glass."

Lewis caught a wistful look in his father's eyes. He felt a sudden surge
of love such as had come to him long years before when he had first
sounded the depths of his father's tenderness. "There's no light in all
the world like cathedral light, Dad," he said with a slight tremble in
his voice, "and it shines through stained glass."

"Thanks, boy, thanks," said Leighton; then he smiled, and threw up his
head. Lewis had learned to know well that gesture of dismissal to a
mood.