"You have never yet asked anything of him that he wasn't glad enough to give," he rejoined, keeping up the third person figurative. "Is that saying very much--or very little?" "Very little, indeed. But it is only your askings that have been lacking--not his good will." "That was said like the David Kent I used to know. Are you really quite the same?" "I hope not," he protested gravely. "People used to say of me that I matured late, and year by year as I look back I can see that it was a true saying. I have done some desperately boyish things since I was a man grown; things that make me tingle when I recall them." "Like wasting a whole summer exploring Mount Croydon with a--a somebody who did not mature late?" "No; I wasn't counting that among my lapses. An older man than I ever hope to be might find excuses for the Croydon summer. I meant in other ways. For one thing, I have craved success as I think few men have ever craved it; and yet my plowings in that field have been ill-timed and boyish to a degree." She shook her head. "I don't know how you measure success; it is a word of so many, many meanings. But I think you are your own severest critic." "That may be; but the fact remains. It is only within the past few months that I have begun to get a true inkling of things; to know, for example, that opportunities are things to be compelled--not waited for." She was looking away from him again. "I am not sure that I like you better for your having discovered yourself. I liked the other David Kent." He smiled rather joylessly. "Somebody has said that for every new point of view gained we have to sacrifice all the treasures of the old. I am sorry if I am disappointing you." "I don't know that you are. And yet, when you were sitting at Miss Van Brock's table the other evening telling us about your experience with the politicians, I kept saying to myself that I didn't know you--that I had never known you." "I wish I knew just how to take that," he said dubiously. "I wish I knew how to make you understand," she returned; and then: "I could have made the other David Kent understand." "You are in duty bound to try to make this one understand, don't you think? You spoke of a danger which was not the violent kind, such as Loring fears. What is it?" "You have had two whole days," she rejoined. "Haven't you discovered it?" "I haven't found anything to fear but failure," was his reply. "That is it; you have given it a name--its only true name--failure." "But I am not going to fail." "You mean you are going to take our railroad away from these men who have stolen it?" "That is what I mean." "And you will do it by threatening to expose them?" "I shall tell Governor Bucks what I know about the oil field deal, assuring him that I shall publish the facts if he doesn't let the law take its course in ousting Judge MacFarlane and the receiver."