f at first, mother," he said,
turning to her after watching the wagonload of Caukinses out of sight,
"harder than I had any idea of. A foreign business training may broaden
a man in some ways, but it leaves his muscles flabby for real home work
here in America. You make your fight over there with gloves, and here
only bare knuckles are of any use; but I'm ready for it!" He smiled and
squared his shoulders as to an imaginary load.

"You don't regret it, do you, Champney?"

"Yes and no, mother. I don't regret it because I have gained a certain
knowledge of men and things available only to one who has lived over
there; but I do regret that, because of the time so spent, I am, at
twenty-seven, still hugging the shore--just as I was when I left
college. After all these years I'm not 'in it' yet; but I shall be
soon," he added; the hard determined ring of steadfast purpose was in
his voice. He sat down on the lower step: his mother brought forward
her chair.

"Champney," she spoke half hesitatingly; she did not find it easy to
question the man before her as she used to question the youth of
twenty-one, "would you mind telling me if there ever was any truth in
the rumor that somehow got afloat over here three years ago that you
were going to marry Ruth Van Ostend? Of course, I denied it when I got
home, for I knew you would have told me if there had been anything to
it."

Champney clasped his hands about his knee and nursed it, smiling to
himself, before he answered:

"I suppose I may as well make a clean breast of the whole affair, which
is little enough, mother, even if I didn't cover myself with glory and
come out with colors flying. You see I was young and, for all my four
years in college, pretty green when it came to the real life of those
people--"

"You mean the Van Ostends?"

"Yes, their kind. It's one thing to accept their favors, and it's quite
another to make them think you are doing them one. So I sailed in to
make Ruth Van Ostend interested in me as far as possible, circumstances
permitting--and you'll admit that a yachting trip is about as favorable
as they make it. You know she's three years older than I, and I think it
flattered and amused her to accept my devotion for a while, but then--"

"But, Champney, did you love her?"

"Well, to be honest, mother, I hadn't got that far myself--don't know
that I ever should have; any way, I wanted to get her to the point
before I went through any self-catechi