Success

character and evolution and essence of him. Yet with all his frankness, the rare, simple, and generous outgiving of a naturall

h, they informed him, was to be expended by them upon such books as they thought suitable to his circumstances, upon information provided by the deceased, the remainder to be at his disposal.Though quite unauthorized to proffer advice, as they honorably stated, they opined that the heir's wisest course would be to prepare himself at once for college, the income being sufficient to take him through, with care--and they were, his Very Truly, Cobb & Morse.Banneker had not the smallest idea of cooping up his mind in a college. As to future occupation, his father had said nothing that was definite. His thesis was that observation and thought concerning men and their activities, pointed and directed by intimate touch with what others had observed and set down--that is, through books--was the gist of life. Any job which gave opportunity or leisure for this was good enough. Livelihood was but a garment, at most; life was the body beneath. Furthermore, young Banneker would find, so his senior had assured him, that he possessed an open sesame to the minds of the really intelligent wheresoever he might encounter them, in the form of a jewel which he must keep sedulously untarnished and bright. What was that? asked the boy. His speech and bearing of a cultivated man.Young Banneker found that it was almost miraculously true. Wherever he went, he established contacts with people who interested him and whom he interested: here a brilliant, doubting, perturbed clergyman, slowly dying of tuberculosis in the desert; there a famous geologist from Washington who, after a night of amazing talk with the young prodigy while awaiting a train, took him along on a mountain exploration; again an artist and his wife who were painting the arid and colorful glories of the waste places. From these and others he got much; but not friendship or permanent associations. He did not want them. He was essentially, though unconsciously, a lone spirit; so his listener gathered. Advancement could have been his in the line of work which had by chance adopted him; but he preferred small, out-of-the-way stations, where he could be with his books and have room to breathe. So here he was at Manzanita. That was all there was to it. Nothing very mysterious or remarkable about it, was there?Io smiled in return. "What is your name?" she asked."Errol. But every one calls me Ban.""Haven't you ever told this to any one before?""No.""Why not?""Why should I?""I don't know really," hesitated the girl, "except that it seems almost inhuman to keep one's self so shut off.""It's nobody else's business.""Yet you've told it to me. That's very charming of you.""You said you'd be interested.""So I am. It's an extraordinary life, though you don't seem to think so.""But I don't want to be extraordinary.""Of course you do," she refuted promptly. "To be ordinary is--is--well, it's like being a dust-colored beetle." She looked at him queerly. "Doesn't Miss Van Arsdale know all this?""I don't see how she could. I've never told her.""And she's never asked you anything?""Not a word. I don't quite see Miss Camilla asking any one questions about themselves. Did she ask you?"The girl's color deepened almost imperceptibly. "You're right," she said. "There's a standard of breeding that we up-to-date people don't attain. But I'm at least intelligent enough to recognize it. You reckon her as a friend, don't you?""Why, yes; I suppose so.""Do you suppose you'd ever come to reckon me as one?" she asked, half bantering, half wistful."There won't be time. You're running away.""Perhaps I might write you. I think I'd like to.""Would you?" he murmured. "Why?""You ought to be greatly flattered," she reproved him. "Instead you shoot a 'why' at me. Well; because you've got something I haven't got. And when I find anything new like that, I always try to get some of it for myself.""I don't know what it could be, but--""Call it your philosophy of life. Your contentment. Or is it only detachment? That can't last, you know."He turned to her, vaguely disturbed as by a threat. "Why not?""You're too--well, distinctive. You're too rare and beautiful a specimen. You'll be grabbed." She laughed softly."Who'll grab me?""How should I know? Life, probably. Grab you and dry you up and put you in a case like the rest of us.""Perhaps that's why I like to stay out here. At least I can be myself.""Is that your fondest ambition?"However much he may have been startled by the swift stab, he gave no sign of hurt in his reply."Call it the line of least resistance. In any case, I shouldn't like to be grabbed and dried up.""Most of us are grabbed and catalogued from our birth, and eventually dried up and set in our proper places.""Not you, certainly.""Because you haven't seen me in my shell. That's where I mostly live. I've broken out for a time.""Don't you like it outside, Butterfly?" he queried with a hint of playful caress in his voice."I like that name for myself," she returned quickly. "Though a butterfly couldn't return to its chrysalis, no matter how much it wanted to, could it? But you may call me that, since we're to be friends.""Then you do like it outside your shell.""It's exhilarating. But I suppose I should find it too rough for my