at
Boone could discuss this matter with greater ease if the eyes of another
did not lay upon him the necessity of maintaining a stoical
self-repression.

McCalloway for the first time traced out in full detail the plan that he
had conceived for Boone: the fantastic dream of his pilgrimage in one
generation along the transitional road his youthful nation had travelled
since its birth. As he listened, the young man's eyes kindled with
imagination and gratitude difficult to express. He had been, he thought,
ambitious to a fault, but for him his preceptor had been far more
ambitious. The horizons of his aspiration widened under such confidence,
but he could only say brokenly, "You're setting me a mighty big task,
sir. If I can do any part of it, I'll owe it all to you."

"We aren't here to compliment each other, my boy," replied McCalloway
bluntly. "But if I've made a mistake in my judgment, I am not yet
prepared to admit it. You owe me nothing. I was alone, without family,
without ties. I was here with a broken life--and you gave me renewed
interest. But that couldn't have gone on, I think, if you hadn't been in
the main what I thought you--if you hadn't had in you the makings of a
man and a gentleman."

He broke off and cleared his throat loudly.

Boone, too, found the moment a trying one, and he thrust his hands deep
in his trousers pockets and said nothing. The uprights that supported
his life's structure seemed, just then, withdrawn without warning.

"You know, when I was offered service in China, I declined--and you know
why," McCalloway reminded him. "I should do the same thing today, except
that now I think you can stand on your own legs. I take it you no longer
need me in the same sense that you did then--and the call that comes to
me is not an unworthy one."

"I reckon, sir--it's military?"

"It's at least advisory, in the military sense. My boy, it pains me not
to be able to take you into my full confidence--but I can't. I can't
even tell you where I am going."

"You--" the question hung a moment on the next words--"you aim to come
back--sometime?"

"God granting me a safe conclusion, I shall come back ... and the
thought of you will be with me in my absence ... the confidence in
you ... the hope for you."

There was again a long silence, then McCalloway said:

"I came here to discuss it with you. I have declined to give a positive
answer until we could do that."

Boone wheeled, and his head came