Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/145

Rh Some of the finest books have come out first in the papers. It's the history of the age."

"I see you've got the same aspirations," Francie remarked, kindly.

"The same aspirations?"

"Those you told me about that day at Saint-Germain."

"Oh, I keep forgetting that I ever broke out to you that way; everything is so changed."

"Are you the proprietor of the paper now?" the girl went on, determined not to notice this sentimental allusion.

"What do you care? It wouldn't even be delicate in me to tell you; for I do remember the way you said you would try and get your father to help me. Don't say you've forgotten it, because you almost made me cry. Any way, that isn't the sort of help I want now and it wasn't the sort of help I meant to ask you for then. I want sympathy and interest; I want some one to whisper once in a while—'Courage, courage; you'll come out all right.' You see I'm a working man and I don't pretend to be anything else," Mr. Flack went on. "I don't live on the accumulations of my ancestors. What I have I earn—what I am I've fought for: I'm a travailleur, as they say here. I rejoice in it; but there is one dark spot in it, all the same."

"And what is that?" asked Francie.

"That it makes you ashamed of me."