Graydon was relieved to find that there would be no irksome delay attending his official discharge. When he walked out a "free man," as he called it, a gentlemanly pension attorney locked arms with him, and hung on like a leech, until the irritated soldier shook him off with less consideration than vigour.
He went directly to the Palace Hotel, where he knew the Cables were stopping. David Cable came down in response to his card. The two men shook hands, each eyeing the other inquiringly for an instant.
"I want you to understand, Graydon, that I am your friend. Nothing has altered my esteem for you."
"Thank you, Mr. Cable. I hardly expected it."
"I don't see why, my boy. But, we'll let all that pass. Mrs. Cable wants to see you."
"Before we go any farther I want to make myself clear to you. I still hope to marry Jane. She says she cannot become my wife. You understand why, sir. I only want to tell you that her objections are not objections to me. She is Jane and I love her, sir, because she is."
"I hope you can win her over, Graydon. She seems determined, however, and she is unhappy. You can't blame her, either. If there were base or common blood in her, it wouldn't make much difference to her pride. But she's made of other material. She's serious about it and I am sensible enough to get her point of view. She wouldn't want to marry you with the prospect of an eternal shadow that neither of you could get off of your minds. I sometimes wish that I knew who were her parents."
"It doesn't matter, so far as I am concerned."
"I know, my boy, but she is thinking of the heritage that comes down from her mother to her. You'll never know how it hurt me to find that I had no daughter. It hurts her worse a thousandfold to learn that she has no mother. I trust it may not happen that you will lose her as a wife."
"If I really thought I couldn't win her, sir, it would ruin my ambition in life. She loves me, I'm sure."
"By the way, Clegg tells me he has offered you the New York office. It is a splendid chance for you. You will take it, of course."
"I expect to talk it over with Mr. Clegg when I get to Chicago."
"Come up to our apartments. Oh, pardon me, Graydon, I want to ask you if you have sufficient money to carry you through? I know the pay of a private is not great--"