* * * * * It was at breakfast that her father heard one Milt Daggett address the
daughter of the Boltwoods as "Claire." The father was surprised into
clearing his throat, and attacking his oatmeal with a zealousness
unnatural in a man who regarded breakfast-foods as moral rather than
interesting.
While he was lighting a cigar, and Claire was paying the bill, Mr.
Boltwood stalked Milt, cleared his throat all over again, and said,
"Nice morning."
It was the first time the two men had talked unchaperoned by Claire.
"Yes. We ought to have a good run, sir." The "sir" came hard. The
historian puts forth a theory that Milt had got it out of fiction. "We
might go up over Mount Washburn. Take us up to ten thousand feet."
"Uh, you said--didn't Miss Boltwood tell me that you are going to
Seattle, too?"
"Yes."
"Friends there, no doubt?"
Milt grinned irresistibly. "Not a friend. But I'm going to make 'em. I'm
going to take up engineering, and some French, I guess, at the
university there."
"Ah. Really?"
"Yes. Been too limited in my ambition. Don't see why I shouldn't get out
and build railroads and power plants and roads--Siberia, Africa, all
sorts of interesting places."
"Quite right. Quite right. Uh, ah, I, oh, I---- Have you seen Miss
Boltwood?"
"I saw Miss Boltwood in the office."
"Oh yes. Quite so. Uh--ah, here she is."
When the Gomez had started, Mr. Boltwood skirmished, "This young man----
Do you think you better let him call you by your Christian name?"
"Why not? I call him 'Milt.' 'Mr. Daggett' is too long a handle to use
when a man is constantly rescuing you from the perils of the deep or
hoboes or bears or something. Oh, I haven't told you. Poor old Milt, his
cat was killed----"
"Yes, yes, dolly, you may tell me about that in due time, but let's
stick to this social problem for a moment. Do you think you ought to be
too intimate with him?"
"He's only too self-respecting. He wouldn't take advantage----"
"I'm quite aware of that. I'm not speaking on your behalf, but on his.
I'm sure he's a very amiable chap, and ambitious. In fact---- Did you
know that he has saved up money to attend a university?"
"When did he tell you that? How long has he been planning---- I thought
that I----"
"Just this morning; just now."
"Oh! I'm relieved."
"I don't quite follow you, dolly, but---- Where was I? Do you realize
what a demure tyrant you are? If you can drag me from New York to the
aboriginal wilds, and I did not like that oatmeal, what will you do to
this innocent? I want to protect him!"
"You better! Because I'm going to carve him, and paint him, and possibly
spoil him. The creating of a man--of one who knows how to handle
life--is so much more wonderful than creating absurd pictures or statues
or stories. I'll nag him into completing college. He'll learn
dignity--or perhaps lose his simplicity and be ruined; and then I'll
marry him off to some nice well-bred pink-face, like Jeff Saxton's
pretty cousin--who may turn him into a beastly money-grubber; and I'm
monkeying with destiny, and I ought to be slapped, and I realize it, and
I can't help it, and all my latent instinct as a feminine meddler is
aroused, and--golly, I almost went off that curve!"