Burned Bridges

"A man like me," he remarked, "has first to learn how to make a living

before he can set about making money."

"Making money is relative. Quite often it merely means making a living

with an extended horizon," she observed. "I know a man with a

ten-thousand-dollar salary who finds it a living, no more."

"Poor devil," he drawled sardonically. "When I get into the

ten-thousand-a-year class I rather think it will afford me a few trifles

beyond bare subsistence."

She smiled.

"Have you set that for a mark to shoot at?"

"I haven't set any limit," he replied. "I haven't got my sights adjusted

yet."

"I can scarcely assure myself that you are really you," she said after a

momentary silence. "I can't seem to disassociate you with Lone Moose and

a blundering optimism, a mystical faith that the Lord would make things

come out right if you only leaned on Him hard enough. Now your talk is

flavored with both egotism and the bitterness of the cynic."

"How should a man talk?" he demanded. "Like a worm if he chance to be

trodden on a few times? Does a man necessarily become cynical when he

realizes that plugging from the bottom up is no child's play? As for

egotism--Heaven knows you knocked that out of me pretty effectually when

you left Lone Moose. You made me feel like a whipped puppy for months. I

chucked myself out of the church because of that--that abased,

disheartened feeling. For a year and a half I've been learning and

discovering that life isn't a parlor game. Do you remember that letter

you left with Cloudy Moon for me? I need only to recall a phrase here

and there in that as a cure for incipient egotism. What do you think I

should have become?" he flung at her, unconscious of the passion in his

voice, "A poor thing glad of a ride in your car? Or a confirmed optimist

in overalls?"

Sophie gave him a queer sidelong glance.

"Can't you let the dead past bury its dead?" she asked quietly.

Thompson kept his eyes on the smooth, green-bordered road for a minute.

The quick wave of feeling passed. He stifled it--indeed, felt ashamed

for letting it briefly master him.

"Of course," he answered at last, and turned to her with a friendly

quirk of his lips. "It is buried pretty deep one way and another, isn't

it? And it would hardly be decent to exhume the remains. Shall we talk

about the weather?"

"Don't be sarcastic," she reproved gently. "Save that to cope with dad.

He'll relish it coming from you."

"I don't know," Thompson said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't mind a chat with

your father. We wouldn't agree on many things, by a good way, although

I've discovered that some of his philosophy is sound enough. But I've

got to make a move, and I'm so situated that I must make it quickly or

not at all. I'm going to take the first north-bound steamer out of San

Francisco. So I don't imagine Mr. Carr will have a chance at me soon."