utiny, stammering protestations, but her
eyes were open to him. She shrugged herself together and assumed a
brisk, motherly air.

"Is it as bad as _that_--truly? And you told me nothing of it! Come--I
want to know." There was a ring of authority in her voice as she leaned
toward him, her great eyes full of pity and succor. "Is the world
different from what you thought? Let me know--where does it hurt? That's
what they say to children."

Challenged thus directly, he felt shame at the thought of confession
equally direct. He would come to it only by winding ways, asserting at
first that there was no trouble; then that the trouble was but a little
one; and insisting at last that, though the trouble was great, it might
have been greater.

Her eyes beat upon him insistently while she drove him to these
admissions. Then she was eager with attention while he compelled himself
to details. He told of his two weeks' humiliation at the school, not
sparing himself, confessing his lack of power, and the pain this
discovery had cost him. When he had finished, with a self-belittling
shrug, she sat silent, bending forward, her hands loosely clasped, her
eyes fixed away from him.

Now that it was over he felt a sudden lightening of his mood, a swift
consciousness of reliance on the woman, a foreknowledge that her words
would profit him. At last she brought her eyes upon him and cut to the
heart of his woe with a single stroke.

"The thing is nothing in itself." He drew a long breath of relief. "It's
in the way you take it. If it weakens you, it's bad. If it strengthens
you, it's good. Call the thing 'failure' if you like--but what has it
done to you?"

"Why, of course"--he broke off to laugh under her waiting look--"of
course I'm still in the race. I see now that I haven't really doubted
myself at all." He looked at her with sudden sharpness. "I'd be ashamed
to doubt myself before you." He sprang to his feet in the excitement of
this discovery and stood alertly before her.

"It doesn't mean anything, does it?" he went on quickly. "You believe in
me?"

She laughed defensively. "I believe in you now. You look so much less
like a whipped schoolboy."

"I won't forget again. That school isn't for me. I can do things those
poor charcoal dusters won't do for years yet. I know that. Baldwin said
they'd spoil me if I wasn't stubborn, and I _was_ stubborn--I am. You
believe I'm stubborn, don't you?"

She smiled assurance. "You have