The truth was that Elizabeth had been worried for days about Dick. A few evenings before, Ward, who took counsel of his daughter rather than of his wife in such affairs, had told her of his concern about his son. "I don’t know what to do with the boy," he had said. "He seems to have no interest in anything; he tired of school, and he tired of college; and now he is of age and--doing nothing." She remembered how he had sat there, puffing at his cigar as if that could assist him to some conclusion. "I tried him in the office for a while, you know, but he did not seem to take it seriously--of course, it wasn’t really serious; the work went on as well without him as with him. I guess he knew that." Elizabeth sat and thought, but the problem which her father had put to her immediately overpowered her; there seemed to be no solution at all--she could not even arrange its terms in her mind, and she was silent, yet her silence was charged with sympathy. "I’ve talked to him, but that does no good. I’ve pleaded with him, but that does no good. I tried giving him unlimited money, then I put him on an allowance, then I cut him off altogether--it was just the same." Ward smoked a moment in silence. "I’ve thought of every known profession. He says he doesn’t want to be a lawyer or a doctor; he has no taste for mechanics, and he seems to have no interest in business. I’ve thought of sending him abroad, or out West, but he doesn’t want to do that." And again the silence and the smoking and the pain. "He’s out to-night--where, I don’t know. I don’t want to know--I’m afraid to know!" There was something wild, appealing and pathetic in this cry wrung from a father’s heart. Elizabeth had looked up quickly, her own heart aching with pity. She recalled how he had said: "Your mother--she doesn’t understand; I don’t know that I want her to; she idolizes the boy; she thinks he can’t do wrong." And then Elizabeth had slipped her arm about his neck, and, leaning over, had placed her cheek against his; her tears had come, and she had felt that his tears had come; he had patted her hand. They had sat thus for a long while. "Poor boy!" Ward had said again. "He’s only making trouble for himself. I’d like to help him, but somehow, Bess, I can’t get next to him; when I try to talk to him, when I try to be confidential and all that--something comes between us, and I can’t say it right. I can’t talk to him as I could to any other man. I don’t know why it is; I sometimes think that it’s all my fault, that I haven’t reared him right, that I haven’t done my duty by him, and yet, God knows, I’ve tried!" "Oh, papa," she had replied protestingly, "you mustn’t blame yourself--you’ve done everything." "He’s really a good boy," Ward had gone on irrelevantly, ignoring himself in his large, unselfish thought for his son. "He’s kind and generous, and he means well enough--and--and--I think he likes me."