Later, in Dawley Kane's spacious suite overlooking the park-like street where the colored lanterns of the rickshaws glowed pleasantly under the trees, the father said, laying a hand affectionately on the boy's shoulder:
“I can't tell you how happy you've made me, Rocky. It looks as if you'd turned your corner. Just don't go in for too much thinking about what you've been through. There's nothing in remorse. As a matter of fact, a little rough experience is a good thing for a boy. After you get your balance you'll be all the closer to life for it.... Go ahead with your college plans, get your degree, and then after a year or two in the New York office I'll bring you out here. We shall be playing for big stakes. And we shall need good men.... That's the whole problem, really--the men. I had my eyes on this man Doane, but he turned out to be only a sentimentalist after all.”
It was the hopelessness of it that drove Rocky out--after a respectful good night--and over to the revolutionary headquarters. He knew that Mr. Doane worked most of the night; and took what sleep he got on a cot there.
|HE sent in his name, and waited for an hour in an outer office. For even at this late hour in the evening headquarters was a busy place. Chinese gentlemen crowded in and out, dressed, to a man, in the frock coats and the flapping black trousers they didn't know how to wear. High officers slipped quietly in and out--in khaki, with the white brassard of the Revolution on their left arms; sometimes with merely a handkerchief tied there Orderlies and messengers came and went. And clerks of untiring patience sat at desks.
It was a difficult hour. Rocky had only his confused emotions to guide him, and his hurt heart. There were moments, even, when he didn't know why he had come. But he never thought of giving up. Whatever their curious relations, he had to see Mr. Doane, who was now the only stable figure in the rocking world about him. The man had been fine--square. That he knew now. And his nervous young imagination was veering toward hero-worship. He was utterly humble.
Naturally he was boyish about it, when they finally led him into that inner office. He said, flushing a little:
“Not too busy for you. I kept you waiting to clear up a lot of things.” The man's great size and calmness of manner--the question rose; had he ever in his life known weariness?--were comforting.