On the part of Philip and Sunshine Ansley the confidence was such that Hildred was permitted to take a walk with Tom before his departure for New York.
"We're not engaged," Hildred reported as part of her mother's conditions, "and we can't be engaged unless you're proved to be Harry Whitelaw. Mother thinks you're going to be. So apparently the question in the long run will be as to whether or not you want me."
"It won't be that. I'm crazy about you, Hildred, more than any fellow ever was before."
"And that's the way I feel about you, Tom. I don't care a bit about the things dad and mother think so important. You're you; you're not your father or your mother, whoever they may have been. I shouldn't love you any the better if you became the son of Mr. and Mrs. Whitelaw. It would only make it easier."
It was a windy afternoon in April, with the trees in new leaf. All along the Fenway the bridal-veil made cascades of whiteness whiter than the hawthorns. Pansies, tulips, and forget-me-nots brightened all the foot-paths. The two tall, supple figures bent and laughed in the teeth of the lusty wind.
Rather it was she who laughed, since she had the confidence in life, while he knew only life's problems.
[Pg 425]
 He had always known life's problems, and though there had never been a time when he was free from them, he never had had one to solve so difficult as this.
"But that's where the shoe pinches," he declared, "that I'm myself, so much more myself than many fellows are; and yet, unless I turn into some one else, I shall lose you."
She threw back her answer with a kind of radiant honesty. "You couldn't lose me, Tom. I couldn't lose you. We've grown together. Nothing can cut us asunder. One can't win out against two people who're as willing to wait as we are."
He was not comforted. "Oh, wait! I don't want to wait."
"Neither do I; but we'd both rather wait than give each other up."
"Wait—for how long?"
"How can I tell how long? As long as we have to."
"Till your father and mother die?"
"Oh, gracious, no! I'm not killing the poor lambs. Till they come round. They'll come round."
"How do you know?"
"Because fathers and mothers always do. Once they see how sad I'll be—"
"Oh, you're going to play that game."
She was indignant. "I shan't play a game. I shall be sad. I'm all right now while you're here; but once you're gone—well, if dad and mother want a martyr on their hands they'll have one. I shan't be putting it on either. I'll not be able to help myself."
[Pg 426]
"I'd rather they came around for some other reason than to save your life."
"I'm not particular about the reason so long as they come round. But you see I'm talking as if the worse were coming to the worst. As a matter of fact, I believe the better is coming to the best."
"Which means that you think the Whitelaws...."
"I know they will."
"And that I...."
"Oh, Tom, you'll be reasonable, won't you?"
He was silent. Even Hildred couldn't see what his past had meant to him. A wretched, miserable past from some points of view, at least it was his own. It had entered into him and made him. It was as hard to take it now as a hideous mistake as it would have been to take his breathing or the circulation of his blood.
The farther it drifted behind him the more content he was to have known it. Each phase had given him something he recognized as an asset. Honey, the Quidmores, the Tollivants, Mrs. Crewdson, the "mudda," had all left behind them experiences which time was beginning to consecrate. Hildred couldn't understand any more than anybody else what it cost him to disclaim them. He often wondered whether, had he been born the son of Henry and Eleonora Whitelaw, and never been stolen away from them, he would have grown to be another Tad. He thought it very likely.
Not that Tad hadn't justified himself. He had. His record in the war had gone far to redeem him. He had come through with sacrifice and honor. Hav
[Pg 427]
ing fought without a scratch for a year and a half, he had, on the very morning of the day when the Armistice was signed, received a wound which, because of the infection in his blood, had resulted in the loss of his right arm. This maiming, which the chance of a few hours would have saved him, he took, according to Hildred, with splendid pluck, though also with an inclination to be peevish. Lily, so Tom's letters from Henry Whitelaw had long ago informed him, had married a man named Greenshields, had had a baby, had been divorced, and again lived at home with her parents.
Tom pondered on the advantages they, Tad and Lily, were assumed to have enjoyed and which he himself had been denied. Everyone, Hildred included, took it for granted that ease and indulgence were blessings, and that he had suffered from the loss of them. Perhaps he had; but he hadn't suffered more than Tad and Lily on whom they had been lavished. Tad with his maimed body, Lily with her maimed life, were not of necessity the product of wealth and luxury; but neither did a blasted soul or character come of necessity from poverty and hardship, or even from an origin in crime.
He couldn't explain this to Hildred, partly because she didn't care, partly because he had not the words, and mostly because her assumptions were those of her society. She would love him just the same whether he were the son of a woman who had killed herself in jail, or that of a banker known throughout the world; but the advantages of being the latter were
[Pg 428]
 to her beyond argument. So they were to him, except that....
Thus with Hildred he came to no conclusions any more than with her parents. With her as with them it was an object to keep him from making any statement that might seem too decisive. If they left it to Henry Whitelaw and himself the scales could but dip in one direction.
And yet when actually face to face with the banker, Tom doubted if the subject was going to be raised. He had written, reminding Whitelaw of the promise he himself had exacted, that on looking for work, Tom should apply first of all to him. Like Ansley, the banker had made an appointment at his office.
The office was in the ponderous and somewhat forbidding structure which bore the name of Meek and Brokenshire in Wall Street. The room into which Tom was shown was shabby and unpretentious. Square, low-ceiled, lighted by two windows looking into yards or courts, its one bit of color lay in the green and red of a Turkey rug, threadbare in spots, and scuffed into wrinkles. Against the walls were heavily carved walnut bookcases, housing books of reference. A few worn leather armchairs made a rough circle about a wide flat-topped desk, which stood in the center of the room. On the desk were some valuable knickknacks, paper weights, paper cutters, pen trays, and other odds and ends, evidently gifts. A white-marble mantelpiece clumsily sculptured in the style of 1840 was adorned above by the lithographed head of the first J. Howard Brokenshire, also of 1840, and one of the founders of the firm.
[Pg 429]
For the first few minutes the room was empty. Tom stood timidly close to the door through which he had come in. The banker entered from a room adjoining.
"Ah, here you are!"
He crossed the floor rapidly. For a long minute Tom found himself held as he had been held before, the man's right hand grasping his, the left hand resting on his shoulder. There was also the same searching with the eyes, and the same little weary push when the eyes had searched enough.
"Sit down."
Tom took the armchair nearest him; the man drew up another. He drew it close, with hungry eagerness. Tom was apologetic.
"I must beg your pardon, sir, for asking you to see me—"
"Oh, no, my dear boy. I should have been hurt if you hadn't. I've been expecting you ever since I read that you'd landed. What made you go to Boston before coming here?"
There was confession in Tom's smile. "I had to see some one."
"Was it Hildred Ansley?"
Tom found himself coloring, and without an answer.
"Oh, you needn't tell me. I............