Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/92

 gaols to release murderers. Church membership, for a lawyer particularly"

He stopped to raise his hat to a fellow church-member and his wife; and Don, looking down at the powdered snow which he threw up with an impatient shuffle of the foot, put in quickly: "I don't think I'm—law doesn't appeal to me."

His father asked mildly: "What do you intend to do?"

"I don't know. I thought" "Yes?"

"I thought that the University education alone" "Along what lines?"

"I—I hadn't decided."

They were at their gate. Mr. Gregg paused with his hand on it and gave Don a stern face and a sudden change of tone. "If you are not going to study law, you must decide what you are going to study. We will talk this over to-night."

Don followed him up the path like a boy led to chastisement. And as long as his father was visibly before him—tall and grave and authoritative—the son's young habit of respect and obedience kept his thought cowed. But as soon as the midday dinner had ended and Don had shut himself in his room, shame and resentment rose in him in a dangerous revolt. He had been tricked; that sudden change from suavity to sternness had been the springing of the trap; the man had played on him with hypocrisy. And for the instant Don despised him.

More than that: in his absence at college, Don had