"This proposition seems now to have become of secondary importance. The
main issue is whether or not a boy twenty-three years old is to be
allowed to express his ideas when they differ from his father's. Allen,
apparently, has settled the matter without any advice from either of
us."

"You don't know what that boy is to me." Sanford's voice broke a little
in spite of him.

"I can imagine," Gorham replied, feelingly. "I know what he would be to
me if he were mine."

"He's all I have in the world, Robert. I've had to be father and mother
to him. I've given him the best education money could buy, I've sent him
to Europe to get that foreign finish every one talks about; and now he
won't do what my heart is set on."

"If the boy wants to go into business, why don't you make a place for
him in your own concern? That's where he ought to be--to take the
responsibilities off your shoulders, one by one, and to continue your
name."

"Put Allen in my furnaces?" Sanford demanded, his choleric attitude
beginning to return. "How can you make a gentleman in my furnaces? Do
you suppose I'd buy a twenty-thousand-dollar painting and hang it up in
the cellar? No, sir; I mean to make something out of that boy better
than his father is, and that isn't the place to do it. But in the
diplomatic service they're all gentlemen--that's why I want to put him
there."