“I shall never alter my opinion.”  Gorham was annoyed by the boy’s persistence.  “It is too late to-night to discuss this phase of the subject with you as thoroughly as we must if you are to continue with the corporation, but in the mean time remember that the Consolidated Companies is in the hands of men whose self-interest is coupled with a personal gratification in the altruistic basis whose nature you have learned from me.  You are not competent to pass upon their motives, and until you are you should not venture to criticise.”

“I admitted that it is all due to my inexperience, Mr. Gorham, and I am sorry that you are angry.  I believe in you as I could never believe in any other man, and I know that, as far as you can control it, you will keep the Consolidated Companies within the lines you have laid down; but I can’t make myself believe that the others have the same honorable intentions.”

“Stop!” cried Gorham, seriously aroused by the boy’s words.  “I shall listen to you no further.  It is only my friendship for your father and my affection for you which, keeps me from speaking harshly to you; but be warned!  You are attempting to interfere in a matter which is too heavy for your strength.  Leave it to those who understand it.”

After Allen left the house Gorham sat for a long time in his library, smoking and meditating.  Yet it was not the possible internal business complications, as suggested by the boy, which occupied his thoughts; it was not some new gigantic transaction about to be launched on behalf of the Companies which filled his mind, nor was it the suggested danger to Eleanor’s peace of mind.  He was thinking of Allen, half blaming himself for the forlorn expression the boy’s face had worn as he left the room.  It was a courageous thing for this youngster to rush in where older and more experienced men would not have dared, to face Robert Gorham and to tell him that the monument he had erected rested upon a base of shifting sand.  His absurd statements regarding Covington were easily explained, but what he had said of the business was an honest expression, even though groundless in fact and resulting from an inexperienced interpretation of matters far beyond his present knowledge.

Gorham contrasted in his mind the changes which these few months had wrought in him.  He remembered how lightly the boy had taken his father’s tirade which had thrown him upon his own resources, and compared this with the depressing effect which his own criticism had produced.

“Poor boy, I’m really sorry for him,” he said to himself.  “With old Stephen on one side and with me on the other, and with his fancied devotion to Alice on top of it all, he must feel that the world is against him.”  Then Gorham’s face became stern again.  “But he must take on ballast,” he said, firmly; “he must get over these snap-judgments and learn to recognize that he is playing with tools too heavy for him to handle.  It will do him good—­but I love the boy for his courage.  It will land him somewhere if he keeps his head.”