“I have dropped my flower!” Alice exclaimed, as she searched up and down the walk.

“There are plenty more right beside you,” suggested her father, surprised.

“I must find this very one,” she insisted, with an expression on her face which Eleanor understood.  “Flowers have personalities just as we have—­and perhaps their joy in life is in giving inspiration, too.”

XII

Whenever a full realization of the fact that he had actually embarked upon a business career came to him, Allen was completely overpowered by his sense of its importance.  He blessed books and book agents, since they had been the indirect means to this much-desired end.  His chance had come to him just when his optimism had begun to waver, with the hydra’s heads multiplying beyond belief; and he proposed to show Alice especially, and Mr. Gorham incidentally, that he was no mere callow youth idly waiting by the wayside.  There could be no doubt whatever regarding his intentions, but a captious critic might have suggested that it would have been the part of wisdom to allow himself ample time for demonstration.  Rome was not built in a day, nor does history record that youth ever acquired the experience of ripe middle age in a like space of time; but Allen’s instructors at college would have given testimony that he was not strong in history.  So it was that he bruised his head frequently at first against the stone wall of precedent and practice, in this particular instance made less yielding by the fact that the vice-president of the Consolidated Companies distinctly resented his addition to the office force.

These first busy weeks were giving Allen ample opportunity to gain experience.  The impetuosity of youth would require time before it became tempered to the degree which would make it wholly reliable; but his enthusiasm, his indefatigable energy, and, above all, his absolute belief in and loyalty to the head of the Companies and the corporation itself were elements of genuine promise.  There were moments which tried the patience, but Allen’s mistakes were so much the result of over-eagerness and consequent over-reaching that Gorham’s annoyance was always short-lived.  Even the errors gave evidence that underneath the boyish irresponsibility lay excellent material for the elder man to mould.

“Once upon a time”—­Gorham put the words in the form of a parable—­“there was a boy who was ambitious to jump a very long distance.  On the day of the contest, in order to make sure of accomplishing his purpose, he took an extra long start, and ran so hard that when he reached the mark from which he was to jump he had spent his strength.”