CHAPTER V

WINT GOES HOME

Wint had thought of going to his father before he talked with Joan. He had tried advances now and then. Once he met the elder Chase on the street and stopped to talk with him, but his father passed by with a curt word of greeting. Another time, he saw Chase in the _Journal_ office and went in. Chase and B. B. Beecham were talking together; but when Wint came in, his father got up and departed. Wint had said:

“Don’t let me drive you away. I just happened in.”

But the senior Chase said: “I was going, anyway,” and he went.

These incidents had roused the old resentment in Wint, but they had hurt him more than they had angered him. And the hurt persisted, while the resentment died. He found excuses for his father. He blamed himself; and he thought of ways of approaching the older man with some hope of success, and discarded them one by one.

Seeing Joan gave him new confidence in himself. She had let him come to see her; his father could do no less. Wint had no illusions as to Joan. He understood that she wanted to help him, wanted to be proud of him; but he understood also that he was on probation. He had not proved himself, in her eyes. That must come with time. They had talked frankly enough together; but--they had merely shaken hands at parting. That was all; that was all he had any right to expect. He could wait--and work--for the rest.

It was much that she had asked him to come to her. It meant that he was no longer outcast in her eyes; and the realization of this gave him new self-respect. It was this very self-respect that enabled him to humble himself to his father. A man can be servile without being self-respecting; but self-respect and true humility are synonyms. Each implies a true self-appraisal. Wint was a man, doing his work among men. He was also his father’s son; and it was as a son that he went to his father at last.

He found the elder Chase at home one evening. He had made sure that his father would be at home; but he was glad, when he got there, to find that his mother had gone next door. His mother could not understand; and no one else could talk much when she was about. Wint smiled when he thought of her; then his lips steadied. There was need for talk between his father and himself.

His father came to the door; and when he saw Wint, he stared at him coldly, and did not invite him to come in. Wint, with a sudden twinge of sorrow, saw that his father had changed and grown older in these last months. It seemed to Wint that his hair was thinner; there were new lines in his face; and his old benevolent condescension toward the world at large was gone. Wint said quietly:

“I want to come in and talk with you if I may.”

Chase hesitated, even then; but--he had been lonely as Wint had been lonely. He stepped to one side and said: “Very well.” Wint went in, and his father shut the door, and bade Wint come into the room off the hall that served him as library, and office, and den. He did not tell Wint to take off his coat, so Wint kept it on. Chase sat down at his desk, Wint took a chair facing him. He did not know how to begin.

Chase said: “Well, what is it you want?”

Wint hesitated, then he smiled a little wistfully; and he said: “I want to be--friends with you again.”

His father abruptly looked away from him. Without looking at Wint, he asked:

“Why?”

Wint’s right hand moved in a curious, appealing way. “Isn’t it natural for a son to--want to be friends with his father, sir?” he suggested.

Chase said harshly: “I told you, once, that I no longer counted you my son.”

“Those things don’t go by what we want, sir,” Wint urged. “I--am your son. And you’re my father.”

“Have you acted as a son should?” Chase asked coldly.

“No,” said Wint, without palliation of the finality of the word, and Chase looked--and was surprised.

“You’ve realized it, have you?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was one thing Chase wanted to do; and it made him feel ridiculous and ashamed of himself to want to do it. What he wanted to do was to take Wint in his arms. And both of them grown men! He shook his head, as though to brush this sentimental desire away. Foolishness! The young rip had made a laughingstock out of him. Yet here he was, ready to give in at a word.

He said: “I suppose Amos sent you.”

Wint bit his lips, and his face set faintly; but his voice was quiet enough when he answered. “No, sir,” he said.

“You tell Amos,” Chase exclaimed, “that you can’t pull his chestnuts out of the fire for him. And he’ll be more anxious to get around me later on than he is now. Tell him that for me.”

Wint shook his head slowly. “Amos didn’t send me,” he said again.

“Thought Amos told you everything to do?” his father asked. “Haven’t got a mind of your own, have you?”

“Yes,” Wint told him. “Yes, I think I have.”

Chase considered, not looking at his son. He could not look at Wint and still hold himself together. After a while he asked:

“Well, what do you want? You haven’t told me what you want.”

“I want to be friends.”

Chase flung that aside with a swift gesture. “I mean, what do you want to get out of me?”

“Nothing.”

His father got up, glared down at Wint angrily. “Don’t think I’m a fool, Wint,” he said, in a rush of words. “You made me look like one, but I’m not. You linked up with Caretall to make a jackass out of me; you went out of your way to shame me by your own shamelessness. I kicked you out with your tail between your legs, as I should have done long before. Now you come whining home again. Don’t try to tell me you’re not after something. I know you are. If you don’t want to say what it is, don’t. That’s your business. But don’t try to make me a fool.”

Wint had sworn to keep his temper; and he did. But he got to his feet with a swift, silent movement that startled his father. And when Chase broke off, Wint said steadily:

“I’ve told you the truth. It’s true I misbehaved--badly. You have a right to be angry with me. It’s true I did not know Caretall planned to stick me in over your head. You know that’s true. As far as the rest of it goes ... I came here to-night just to tell you that I’m sorry for--the things I did. And I want you to know I’m sorry. You’re my father. I’d like to have the right to come to you for advice; and I’d like to come to you for friendship, if nothing more. That’s all. I’ve come.” He turned toward the door. “I’ve come, and I’ll go.”

When Wint turned toward the door, his father’s heart leaped as though it would choke him. He wanted to cry out to Wint not to go; he did cry out:

“Wait!”

Wint stopped and looked at him.

“Haven’t you given me a right to think--to mistrust you?” the older man challenged.

“Yes,” said Wint.

“You’ve shamed me; and you’ve come near breaking your mother’s heart.”

Wint found it hard to speak; and when he did speak, he said more than he had meant to say. “I want to make amends, sir,” he told his father.

“There are some hurts that can’t be mended,” said Chase inexorably.

Wint nodded; his shoulders slumped a little, and he would have turned again to the door. “I’ve said all I can say,” he explained, “so I guess I’d better go.”

Chase shook his head. “See here, Wint,” he said. “Listen.” There was not yet friendliness in his voice; but there was a neutral quality that held Wint. “Listen,” said Chase. “I’ve learned some things, too, Wint. It’s only fair to say that I can see, now, I was a--bumptious father. And I’ve not changed. I’m too old to change. Probably there were ways where I wronged you. I don’t doubt it.”

“No,” said Wint. “You were always decent to me.”

“A father can be--decent to his son, without playing fair with him,” said his father. “A father can--give things to his son, and at the same time rob him of better things by the giving.”

“You did your part, sir.”

Chase hesitated, eyes on the floor. “I did my best for you, Wint,” he said. “I think I always meant to do what was--best for you. Did you always try to do what was best for me?”

“No,” said Wint.

“I don’t like our being at outs any better than you do,” Chase went on. “It looks bad; and it’s hard on your mother--and on me. Perhaps on you, too.”

Wint said nothing. He was thinking that his father’s thinning hair and lined face proved that the older man had--found it hard to be at outs with his son. He was ready to go a long ways to make it up to Winthrop Chase, Senior.

His father said abruptly, as though summarizing what had gone before:

“If you want to come home, Wint, I’ve no objection.”

Wint had not thought of this possibility, and he said so. “I did not come for that,” he told the older man. “I--just came to tell you, what I have told you.”

“I’m willing to accept what you say at face value,” said his father. “I understand you’ve--kept sober. I understand you’re studying. I’m ready to let you prove yourself.”

Wint smiled with quick satisfaction. “That’s a good deal for you to offer me, sir,” he said frankly.

“If you want to come home, you can.”

“I hadn’t thought of that till you spoke. I don’t know what to--”

“Your mother would like to have you here,” said Chase huskily, “if you care to come.” It was as near a plea as he could bring himself.

Wint nodded with quick decision. “All right, sir,” he said. “I’d like to come. I’ll bring my stuff to-morrow.”

They shook hands abruptly, with a curt word that hid their feelings. “Good night,” said Chase, and Wint said good night, and his father closed the door behind him.

Wint felt, while he walked back to Amos Caretall’s house, as though he had been stripped of a load, had been cleansed, had been made whole. The world had never looked so clean and bright to him before.

A few minutes after he left his home, Mrs. Chase came back from the neighbor’s. She saw at once that something had happened; there was a change in her husband. He was flushed, and his eyes were shining. She asked:

“Why, what’s the matter with you? Has anything happened? Is there anything wrong? You know, I said to-night, I told Mrs. Hullis, that I just had a feeling something was going to happen. I told Mrs. Hullis I just knew things were going to go wrong. Oh, it does look like we have more trouble all the time.”

“Wint is coming home, Margaret,” said her husband.

Poor, garrulous mother! For once she was shocked dumb. Her eyes widened, and she dabbed at them with her hand, as though a cobweb had stuck across them. She turned white, and she seemed to shrink and grow old. And she sat down slowly in the straight, uncomfortable chair she always used, and put her worried old head down in her arms and cried.

Chase touched her shoulder, awkwardly comforting her.

“It’s all right, mother,” he said. “He’s coming home.”

But Mrs. Chase didn’t say anything. She just sat there, quietly crying. The tears wet through her sleeve till she felt them damp upon her arm.