The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1913-08-03

the old town where one was so pleas
antly a favored son. His father was
at court and his mother at her club.
But he had a curious dissemination to
idle around the Square. He took a
notion to dress for dinner, although
there were to be no guests. His father
did SO occasionally in their home life !;
it was understood by the Van Harris
as an assertion of old and real stand
ards. There were but nine families in
Rome who even dined at night, and
these nine definitely fixed the social
life. People who dine at 6 do not dine
in shirt sleeves.
Harlan was going to. dress for, the
last home dinner. 1t would divert him
from his inexplicable dissatisfaction,
perhaps. He looked about his room at
the trophies of his undergraduate days
banners, dance programs, fayors, his
tennis racquets, fraternity parchments-
hung as he had cherished them. Now
he felt an intolerance of this sopho-
moric display. He promised that when
he came back next fall all this truck
should 60 to the garnet. 1t should be
a mans room, for today he felt no
more tn. boy. He would be the man;
something had come to him in his Bit
terness, his first bewilderment, that
told him he must be man now, and
not the lovesick youth, OF. the tritier
with all this easy popularity he had
among all sorts of people. He recalled
curiously now how his mother had al
ways contrived that he spend his time
with the right sort of people; how he
was SO thoroughly of the gracious life
of this kind of people; everything good
came without effort, without cost. Yet
he would have been surprised to be-
lieve he was anything else but demo-
crat-a young man of the easy, full
lived, tolerant American democracy
the sort of fellow who calls on ones
daughters, and whom ones daughters
marry when he has made enough in
the business or become junior part
ner of the firm. East or West, he was
the same clean, clear-minded chap of
family and money. To get on in the
world meant no particular struggle;
merely common sense and industry,
and cultivating the right sort of peo-
pie, and taking easy advantage of the
opportunities that ones position gives
one. His father was that sort of man
exactly. All the county accepted him
as a type of the sturdy. democratizing.
citizen; and Harlan looked out on the
people reciprocally - brown, kind
hearted people. unconscious, unafraid,
unindebted, their wallets filled. He re-
membered once travelling with Elise
had been ashamed of a country uncle
who took out a paper shoe box of
lunch and ate fried chicken and pickles
on the seat of the coach. Harlan had
resented Elise's feeling. He had no
country relations, but he felt a stout
kinship with all this prosy, common,
wholesome living. They were his
home people, these Midlanders, the
best of Americans. Certainly he was
democrat, as his father was, without
struggle, without cost, without having
to soil his hands at anything, or as
sumo obligation. If one had accused
him of class-consciousness, he would
not have taken one seriously.
His father and mother had no COM
ment when he appeared dressed for
dinner. Mrs. Van Hart smiled; it was
such likable following of the judges
habits. The affair of last night had
been put by; they had had it out after
the party, and Harlan had listened in
silence. Their hopes of him, their
pride in him; all they had built and
lived and dreamed for him-they knew
he would not throw it away. He had
listened, then he had arisen and said
simply: Mother, I'm going back to
school tomorrow. Can't you trust me
in this affair-Aurelie Lindstrom-as
you can in eveything!"
And the mother had answered
proudly, Yes"
Tonight at dinner he felt his fathers
kindly eyes on him; his mothers at
fectionate welcome was unchanged.
The matter was not mentioned again.
He knew it would not be. Yes, they
trusted him-so loyalty, so splendidly,'
they trusted him! They placed on him
the unspoken but unacceptable heritage
they had received. He would wrong it
in no way. Mrs. Van Hart had sum-
med it up to the judge alone last night.
Harlan would not marry an impossi-
Bile girl any more than you would, dear
or your father, or your fathers
father. 1t was one of those chivalrous