Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/235

 practically, had scrimped and spared to help him through "high school"; it caused him to compare his success, with frank satisfaction, with the progress of others who had been boys with him; it brought him to his winning of his first "raise" in Tri-Lake and bearing the trophy of it to Corinna Winfield in her Edgewater home,—to the beautiful, self-assured girl whose coolness and aloofness then so taunted and allured him. Each of his triumphs since that day up to this had been another trophy to bring to her; and this, too, was a trophy for her; for he telegraphed her on board the train that he had it.

That was a far better way for him, this time, than to tell her personally; to another woman he would, if he could, bear this his trophy in person; but prudence warned him that, on this night, he had better not; so he contented himself with speaking to her over a telephone. Then he turned to his home to bring his triumph to his daughter.

And, as he thought about her, he realized that he wished to impress her more than any one else with his vindication, for that was what he called it to himself. He had no need to justify himself before his wife who, though undoubtedly pleased at his winning higher position, only expected it of him as a matter of course; and he had no need for vindication of himself before Sybil Russell. So, while Leonard was driving him home, Charles Hale dwelt on his meeting with his daughter, which would be their first after they were left in the house alone; and, although he had told her he did not subscribe to her ideas of conduct or to her judgments, yet he was particularly glad to be bearing to her proof that other men did not. Until he actually possessed this endorsement, he had not confessed to himself how