"I ’ve known all the while father wanted me in the house with him, and wanted me to go to college with that end in view. We ’ve had a few brushes on the subject from time to time, and I ’ve told him over and over I never meant to go to college, or to go into the business, either, but he ’s thought it boy talk, I suppose. Anyhow, it turns out he’s never taken me seriously when I ’ve told him I meant to live my own life in my own way. He had me tutored all last winter, to get me ready for my entrance examinations, and he expects me to go down and take them next week. That ’s where I balked. He tackled me last night, and I had it out with him. The result was"--Forrest tried to keep up the nonchalant manner he had assumed when he began this explanation, but his voice showed his strong feeling as he ended the sentence--"the result was--he gave it to me hot and heavy, and I--talked back at him. In short, I----" Jane, her pretty lips set close together, her troubled eyes on the ground, listened anxiously for the words. "You don’t mean----" she began, slowly. Forrest nodded, and she caught the gesture. It brought her head round and her eyes to search his. "You didn’t--say you wouldn’t do what he wants?" "I did--and meant it." Jane drew a long breath. She forgot her weeding and sat back upon the walk, pulling off her gloves. Forrest waited silently for her first comment. "Imagine my brother Peter doing that," she murmured. "I can’t imagine it--though Peter’s no soft-head. But your father’s human, Jane. Mine--isn’t." "Oh, he is--he is! Don’t say that! He may seem stern and hard, but that ’s only on the surface, I ’m sure." "Much you know about it!" muttered Forrest. "But, anyhow, hard or not, I ’m not going to be put into a business life I hate." "What would you like to do?" "Go into the army." Jane stared at him, astonished. This idle youth live that sort of life? Her lips curved slowly into a smile, at which Forrest promptly took umbrage. "See here," he said, sitting up straight, "you ’re not to judge me, you know, from what you ’ve seen of me in the two months you ’ve lived in Gay Street. I ’ve been on vacation, I admit, ever since my tutor left in March. Besides, it ’s not enlisting as a private I ’m thinking of--no, no! I want to enter the army by the way of West Point, and get my lieutenant’s commission at graduation. That ’s a very different thing." "Yes, that’s true. It means, I believe, four years of the severest training in the world. I know a boy who went--he could n’t stand it." Forrest flushed hotly under his fair skin. "And you think I could n’t. That settles it. I ’ll go, if only to prove you ’re mistaken." The girl looked up quickly, startled by his tone. "Ah, please," she began, "don’t talk that way. Tell me--will your brother go into the business?"