"I will go to the concerts and lectures gladly," said Michael gravely. "I can see they will be fine for me, and I thank you very much for the opportunity, but that will not hinder my work. It begins always rather late in the evening, and there are other times--"
"You've no business to be staying out in places like that after the hour of closing of decent places of amusement."
Michael refrained from saying that he had several times noticed society ladies returning from balls and entertainments when he was on his way home.
"I simply can't have it if I'm to stand back of you."
"I'm, sorry," said Michael. "You won't ever know how sorry I am. It was so good to know that I had somebody who cared a little for me. I shall miss it very much. It has been almost like having a real father. Do you mean that you will have to give up the--fatherliness?"
Endicott's voice shook with mingled emotions. It couldn't be that this young upstart who professed to be so grateful and for whom he had done so much would actually for the sake of a few wretched beings and a sentimental feeling that he belonged in the slums and ought to do something for them, run the risk of angering him effectually. It could not be!
"It means that I shall not do any of the things I had planned to do for you, if you persist in refusing my most reasonable request. Listen, young man--"
Michael noticed with keen pain that he had dropped the customary "son" from his conversation, and it gave him a queer choky sensation of having been cut off from the earth.
"I had planned"--the keen eyes searched the beautiful manly face before him and the man's voice took on an insinuating tone; the tone he used when he wished to buy up some political pull; the tone that never failed to buy his man. Yet even as he spoke he felt an intuition that here was a man whom he could not buy-"I had planned to do a good many things for you. You will be through your studies pretty soon and be ready to set up for yourself. Had you thought ahead enough to know whether you would like a partnership in some old firm or whether you want to set up for yourself?"
Michael's voice was grave and troubled but he answered at once: "I would like to set up for myself, sir. There are things I must do, and I do not know if a partner would feel as I do about them."