Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney

by Edna Ferber

  X

  IN THE ABSENCE OF THE AGENT

  This is a love-story. But it is a love-story with a logical ending.Which means that in the last paragraph no one has any one else in hisarms. Since logic and love have long been at loggerheads, the story mayend badly. Still, what love passages there are shall be left intact.There shall be no trickery. There shall be no running breathless,flushed, eager-eyed, to the very gateway of Love's garden, only to bumpone's nose against that baffling, impregnable, stone-wall phrase of "letus draw a veil, dear reader." This is the story of the love of a man fora woman, a mother for her son, and a boy for a girl. And there shall beno veil.

  Since 8 A.M., when she had unlocked her office door, Mrs. Emma McChesneyhad been working in bunches of six. Thus, from twelve to one shehad dictated six letters, looked up memoranda, passed on samples ofpetticoat silk, fired the office-boy, wired Spalding out in Nebraska,and eaten her lunch. Emma McChesney was engaged in that nerve-rackingprocess known as getting things out of the way. When Emma McChesneyaimed to get things out of the way she did not use a shovel; she used aroad-drag.

  Now, at three-thirty, she shut the last desk-drawer with a bang, lockedit, pushed back the desk-phone, discovered under it the inevitablemislaid memorandum, scanned it hastily, tossed the scrap of paper intothe brimming waste-basket, and, yawning, raised her arms high above herhead. The yawn ended, her arms relaxed, came down heavily, and landedher hands in her lap with a thud. It had been a whirlwind day. At thatmoment most of the lines in Emma McChesney's face slanted downward.

  But only for that moment. The next found her smiling. Up went thecorners of her mouth! Out popped her dimples! The laugh-lines appearedat the corners of her eyes. She was still dimpling like an anticipatorychild when she had got her wraps from the tiny closet, and was standingbefore the mirror, adjusting her hat.

  "It had been a whirlwind day"]

  The hat was one of those tiny, pert, head-hugging trifles that onlya very pretty woman can wear. A merciless little hat, that gives noquarter to a blotched skin, a too large nose, colorless eyes. EmmaMcChesney stood before the mirror, the cruel little hat perched atop herhair, ready to give it the final and critical bash which should bring itdown about her ears where it belonged. But even now, perched grotesquelyatop her head as it was, you could see that she was going to get awaywith it.

  It was at this critical moment that the office door opened, and thereentered T. A. Buck, president of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoatand Lingerie Company. He entered smiling, leisurely, serene-eyed, asone who anticipates something pleasurable. At sight of Emma McChesneystanding, hatted before the mirror, the pleasurable look became lessconfident.

  "Hello!" said T. A. Buck. "Whither?" and laid a sheaf ofbusinesslike-looking papers on the top of Mrs. McChesney's well cleareddesk.

  Mrs. McChesney, without turning, performed the cramming processsuccessfully, so that her hat left only a sub-halo of fluffy bright hairpeeping out from the brim.

  Then, "Playing hooky," she said. "Go 'way."

  T. A. Buck picked up the sheaf of papers and stowed them into an insidecoat-pocket. "As president of this large and growing concern," he said,"I want to announce that I'm going along."

  Emma McChesney adjusted her furs. "As secretary of said firm I rise tostate that you're not invited."

  T. A. Buck, hands in pockets, stood surveying the bright-eyed womanbefore him. The pleasurable expression had returned to his face.

  "If the secretary of the above-mentioned company has the cheek to playhooky at 3:30 P.M. in the middle of November, I fancy the president candemand to know where she's going, and then go too."

  Mrs. McChesney unconcernedly fastened the clasp of her smart Englishglove.

  "Didn't you take two hours for lunch? Had mine off the top of my desk.Ham sandwich and a glass of milk. Dictated six letters between bites andswallows."

  A frown of annoyance appeared between T. A. Buck's remarkably fine eyes.He came over to Mrs. McChesney and looked down at her.

  "Look here, you'll kill yourself. It's all very well to be interested inone's business, but I draw the line at ruining my digestion for it. Whyin Sam Hill don't you take a decent hour at least?"

  "Only bricklayers can take an hour for lunch," retorted Emma McChesney."When you get to be a lady captain of finance you can't afford it."

  She crossed to her desk and placed her fingers on the electric switch.The desk-light cast a warm golden glow on the smart little figure in thetrim tailored suit, the pert hat, the shining furs. She was rosy-cheekedand bright-eyed as a schoolgirl. There was about her that vigor, andglow, and alert assurance which bespeaks congenial work, sound sleep,healthy digestion, and a sane mind. She was as tingling, and bracing,and alive, and antiseptic as the crisp, snappy November air outdoors.

  T. A. Buck drew a long breath as he looked at her.

  "Those are devastating clothes," he remarked. "D'you know, until now Ialways had an idea that furs weren't becoming to women. Make most of 'emlook stuffy. But you--"

  Emma McChesney glanced down at the shining skins of muff and scarf. Shestroked them gently and lovingly with her gloved hand.

  "M-m-m-m! These semi-precious furs _are_ rather satisfactory--until yousee a woman in sealskin and sables. Then you want to use 'em for a hallrug."

  T. A. Buck stepped within the radius of the yellow light, so that itsglow lighted up his already luminous eyes--eyes that had a trick oftranslucence under excitement.

  "Sables and sealskin," repeated T. A. Buck, his voice vibrant. "If it'sthose you want, you can--"

  Snap! went the electric switch under Emma McChesney's fingers. It was asdecisive as a blow in the face. She walked to the door. The little roomwas dim.

  "I'm sending my boy through college with my sealskin-and-sable fund,"she said crisply; "and I'm to meet him at 4:30."

  "Oh, that's your appointment!" Relief was evident in T. A. Buck's tone.

  Emma McChesney shook a despairing head. "For impudent and unquenchableinquisitiveness commend me to a man! Here! If you must know, though Iintended it as a surprise when it was finished and furnished--I'm goingto rent a flat, a regular six-room, plenty-of-closets flat, after tenyears of miserable hotel existence. Jock's running over for two days toapprove it. I ought to have waited until the holidays, so he wouldn'tmiss classes; but I couldn't bear to. I've spent ten Thanksgivings, andten Christmases, and ten New Years in hotels. Hell has no terrors forme."

  They were walking down the corridor together.

  "Take me along--please!" pleaded T. A. Buck, like a boy. "I know allabout flats, and gas-stoves, and meters, and plumbing, and everything!"

  "You!" scoffed Emma McChesney, "with your five-story house and yoursummer home in the mountains!"

  "Mother won't hear of giving up the house. I hate it myself. Bathroomsin those darned old barracks are so cold that a hot tub is an icy plungebefore you get to it." They had reached the elevator. A stubborn lookappeared about T. A. Buck's jaw. "I'm going!" he announced, andscudded down the hail to his office door. Emma McChesney pressed theelevator-button. Before the ascending car showed a glow of light in theshaft T. A. Buck appeared with hat, gloves, stick.

  "I think the car's downstairs. We'll run up in it. What's the address?Seventies, I suppose?"

  Emma McChesney stepped out of the elevator and turned. "Car! Not I!If you're bound to come with me you'll take the subway. They're askingenough for that apartment as it is. I don't intend to drive up in afive-thousand-dollar motor and have the agent tack on an extra twentydollars a month."

  T. . Buck smiled with engaging agreeableness. "Subway it is," he said."Your presence would turn even a Bronx train into a rose-garden."

  Twelve minutes later the new apartment building, with its cream-tileand red-brick Louis Somethingth facade, and its tan brick and plasterMichael-Dougherty-contractor back, loomed before them, soaring evenabove its lofty neighbors. On the door-step stood a maple-colored giantin a splendor of scarlet, and gold braid, and glittering buttons. The
great entrance door was opened for them by a half-portion duplicate ofthe giant outside. In the foyer was splendor to grace a palace hall.There were great carved chairs. There was a massive oaken table. Therewere rugs, there were hangings, there were dim-shaded lamps casting asoft glow upon tapestry and velours.

  Awaiting the pleasure of the agent, T. A. Buck, leaning upon his stick,looked about him appreciatively. "Makes the Knickerbocker lobby looklike the waiting-room in an orphan asylum."

  "Don't let 'em fool you," answered Emma McChesney, _sotto voce,_ justbefore the agent popped out of his office. "It's all included in therent. Dinky enough up-stairs. If ever I have guests that I want toimpress I'll entertain 'em in the hall."

  There approached them the agent, smiling, urbane, pleasing as tomanner--but not too pleasing; urbanity mixed, so to speak, with theleaven of caution.

  "Ah, yes! Mrs.--er--McChesney, wasn't it? I can't tell you how manyparties have been teasing me for that apartment since you looked at it.I've had to--well--make myself positively unpleasant in order to hold itfor you. You said you wished your son to--"

  The glittering little jewel-box of an elevator was taking them higherand higher. The agent stared hard at T. A. Buck.

  Mrs. McChesney followed his gaze. "My business associate, Mr. T. A.Buck," she said grimly.

  The agent discarded caution; he was all urbanity. Their floor attained,he unlocked the apartment door and threw it open with a gesture whichwas a miraculous mixture of royalty and generosity.

  "He knows you!" hissed Emma McChesney, entering with T. A. "Anotherten on the rent." The agent pulled up a shade, switched on a light,straightened an electric globe. T. A. Buck looked about at the barewhite walls, at the bare polished floor, at the severe fireplace.

  "I knew it couldn't last," he said.

  "If it did," replied Emma McChesney good-naturedly, "I couldn't affordto live here," and disappeared into the kitchen followed by the agent,who babbled ever and anon of views, of Hudsons, of express-trains, ofparks, as is the way of agents from Fiftieth Street to One Hundred and'Umpty-ninth.

  T. A. Buck, feet spread wide, hands behind him, was left standing in thecenter of the empty living-room. He was leaning on his stick and gazingfixedly upward at the ornate chandelier. It was a handsome fixture, andboasted some of the most advanced ideas in modern lighting equipment.Yet it scarcely seemed to warrant the passionate scrutiny which T.A. Buck was bestowing upon it. So rapt was his gaze that when thetelephone-bell shrilled unexpectedly in the hallway he started so thathis stick slipped on the polished floor, and as Emma McChesney and thestill voluble agent emerged from the kitchen the dignified head of thefirm of T. A. Buck and Company presented an animated picture, one leg inthe air, arms waving wildly, expression at once amazed and hurt.

  Emma McChesney surveyed him wide-eyed. The agent, unruffled, continuedto talk on his way to the telephone.

  "It only looks small to you," he was saying. "Fact is, most people thinkit's too large. They object to a big kitchen. Too much work." He gavehis attention to the telephone.

  Emma McChesney looked troubled. She stood in the doorway, head on oneside, as one who conjures up a mental picture.

  "Come here," she commanded suddenly, addressing the startled T. A. "Younagged until I had to take you along. Here's a chance to justify yourcoming. I want your opinion on the kitchen."

  "Kitchens," announced T. A. Buck of the English clothes and thegardenia, "are my specialty," and entered the domain of the gas-rangeand the sink.

  Emma McChesney swept the infinitesimal room with a large gesture.

  "Considering it as a kitchen, not as a locker, does it strike you asbeing adequate?"

  T. A. Buck, standing in the center of the room, touched all four wallswith his stick.

  "I've heard," he ventured, "that they're--ah--using 'em small thisyear."

  Emma McChesney's eyes took on a certain wistful expression. "Maybe. Butwhenever I've dreamed of a home, which was whenever I got lonesome onthe road, which was every evening for ten years, I'd start to plan akitchen. A kitchen where you could put up preserves, and a keg of dillpickles, and get a full-sized dinner without getting things more thanjust comfortably cluttered."

  T. A. Buck reflected. He flapped his arms as one who feels pressed forroom. "With two people occupying the room, as at present, the presenceof one dill pickle would sort of crowd things, not to speak of a keg of'em, and the full-sized dinner, and the--er--preserves. Still--"

  "As for a turkey," wailed Emma McChesney, "one would have to go out onthe fire-escape to baste it."

  The swinging door opened to admit the agent. "Would you excuse me?A party down-stairs--lease--be back in no time. Just look about--anyquestions--glad to answer later--"

  "Quite all right," Mrs. McChesney assured him. Her expression was one ofrelief as the hall door closed behind him. "Good! There's a spot in themirror over the mantel. I've been dying to find out if it was a flaw inthe glass or only a smudge."

  She made for the living-room. T. A. Buck followed thoughtfully.Thoughtfully and interestedly he watched her as she stood on tiptoe,breathed stormily upon the mirror's surface, and rubbed the moist placewith her handkerchief. She stood back a pace, eyes narrowed critically.

  "It's gone, isn't it?" she asked.

  T. A. Buck advanced to where she stood and cocked his head too,judicially, and in the opposite direction to which Emma McChesney's headwas cocked. So that the two heads were very close together.

  "It's a poor piece of glass," he announced at last.

  A simple enough remark. Perhaps it was made with an object in view, butcertainly it was not meant to bring forth the storm of protest thatcame from Emma McChesney's lips. She turned on him, lips quivering, eyeswrathful.

  "You shouldn't have come!" she cried. "You're as much out of place in asix-room flat as a truffle would be in a boiled New England dinner. Doyou think I don't see its shortcomings? Every normal woman, no matterwhat sort of bungalow, palace, ranch-house, cave, cottage, or tenementshe may be living in, has in her mind's eye a picture of the sort ofapartment she'd live in if she could afford it. I've had mine mappedout from the wall-paper in the front hall to the laundry-tubs in thebasement, and it doesn't even bear a family resemblance to this."

  "I'm sorry," stammered T. A. Buck. "You asked my opinion and I--"

  "Opinion! If every one had so little tact as to give their true opinionwhen it was asked this would be a miserable world. I asked you becauseI wanted you to lie. I expected it of you. I needed bolstering up.I realize that the rent I'm paying and the flat I'm getting form ageometrical problem where X equals the unknown quantity and only theagent knows the answer. But it's going to be a home for Jock and me.It's going to be a place where he can bring his friends; where he canhave his books, and his 'baccy, and his college junk. It will bethe first real home that youngster has known in all his miserableboarding-house, hotel, boys' school, and college existence. Sometimeswhen I think of what he's missed, of the loneliness and the neglect whenI was on the road, of the barrenness of his boyhood, I--"

  T. A. Buck started forward as one who had made up his mind aboutsomething long considered. Then he gulped, retreated, paced excitedlyto the door and back again. On the return trip he found smiling andrepentant Emma McChesney regarding him.

  "Now aren't you sorry you insisted on coming along? Letting yourself infor a ragging like that? I think I'm a wee bit taut in the nerves at theprospect of seeing Jock--and planning things with him--I--"

  T. A. Buck paused in his pacing. "Don't!" he said. "I had it coming tome. I did it deliberately. I wanted to know how you really felt aboutit."

  Emma McChesney stared at him curiously. "Well, now you know. But Ihaven't told you half. In all those years while I was selling T. A.Buck's Featherloom Petticoats on the road, and eating hotel food thattasted the same, whether it was roast beef or ice-cream, I was planningthis little place. I've even made up my mind to the scandalous price I'mwilling to pay a maid who'll cook real dinners for us and serve
them asI've always vowed Jock's dinners should be served when I could affordsomething more than a shifting hotel home."

  T. A. Buck was regarding the head of his if walking-stick with a gaze asintent as that which he previously had bestowed upon the chandelier. Forthat matter it was a handsome enough stick--a choice thing in malacca.But it was scarcely more deserving than the chandelier had been.

  Mrs. McChesney had wandered into the dining-room. She peered out ofwindows. She poked into butler's pantry. She inspected wall-lights. Andstill T. A. Buck stared at his stick.

  "It's really robbery," came Emma McChesney's voice from the next room."Only a New York agent could have the nerve to do it. I've a friend wholives in Chicago--Mary Cutting. You've heard me speak of her. Has aflat on the north side there, just next door to the lake. The rentis ridiculous; and--would you believe it?--the flat is equipped withbookcases, and gorgeous mantel shelves, and buffet, and bathroomfixtures, and china-closets, and hall-tree--"

  Her voice trailed into nothingness as she disappeared into the kitchen.When she emerged again she was still enumerating the charms of theabsurdly low-priced Chicago flat, thus:

  "--and full-length mirrors, and wonderful folding table-shelf gimcracksin the kitchen, and--"

  T. A. Buck did not look up. But, "Oh, Chicago!" he might have been heardto murmur, as only a New-Yorker can breathe those two words.

  "Don't 'Oh, Chicago!' like that," mimicked Emma McChesney. "I've lainawake nights dreaming of a home I once saw there, with the lake inthe back yard, and a couple of miles of veranda, and a darlingvegetable-garden, and the whole place simply honeycombed with bathrooms,and sleeping-porches, and sun-parlors, and linen-closets, and--gracious,I wonder what's keeping Jock!"

  T. A. Buck wrenched his eyes from his stick. All previous remarksdescriptive of his eyes under excitement paled at the glow which lightedthem now. They glowed straight into Emma McChesney's eyes and held them,startled.

  "Emma," said T. A. Buck quite calmly, "will you marry me? I want togive you all those things, beginning with the lake in the back yard andending with the linen-closets and the sun-parlor."

  And Emma McChesney, standing there in the middle of the dining-roomfloor, stared long at T. A. Buck, standing there in the center of theliving-room floor. And if any human face, in the space of seventeenseconds, could be capable of expressing relief, and regret, and alarm,and dismay, and tenderness, and wonder, and a great womanly sympathy,Emma McChesney's countenance might be said to have expressed all thoseemotions--and more. The last two were uppermost as she slowly cametoward him.

  "T. A.," she said, and her voice had in it a marvelous quality, "I'mthirty-nine years old. You know I was married when I was eighteen andgot my divorce after eight years. Those eight years would have left anywoman who had endured them with one of two determinations: to take uplife again and bring it out into the sunshine until it was sound, andsweet, and clean, and whole once more, or to hide the hurt and broodover it, and cover it with bitterness, and hate until it destroyed byits very foulness. I had Jock, and I chose the sun, thank God! I saidthen that marriage was a thing tried and abandoned forever, for me. Andnow--"

  There was something almost fine in the lines of T. A. Buck's toofeminine mouth and chin; but not fine enough.

  "Now, Emma," he repeated, "will you marry me?"

  Emma McChesney's eyes were a wonderful thing to see, so full of painwere they, so wide with unshed tears.

  "As long as--he--lived," she went on, "the thought of marriage wasrepulsive to me. Then, that day seven months ago out in Iowa, when Ipicked up that paper and saw it staring out at me in print thatseemed to waver and dance"--she covered her eyes with her hand for amoment--"'McChesney--Stuart McChesney, March 7, aged forty-seven years.Funeral to-day from Howland Brothers' chapel. Aberdeen and Edinburghpapers please copy!'"

  "'Emma.' he said, 'will you marry me?'"]

  T. A. Buck took the hand that covered her eyes and brought it gentlydown.

  "Emma," he said, "will you marry me?"

  "T. A., I don't love you. Wait! Don't say it! I'm thirty-nine, butI'm brave and foolish enough to say that all these years of work, anddisappointment, and struggle, and bitter experience haven't convincedme that love does not exist. People have said about me, seeing me inbusiness, that I'm not a marrying woman. There is no such thing as that.Every woman is a marrying woman, and sometimes the light-heartedest, andthe scoffingest, and the most self-sufficient of us are, beneath it all,the marryingest. Perhaps I'm making a mistake. Perhaps ten years fromnow I'll be ready to call myself a fool for having let slip what thewise ones would call a 'chance.' But I don't think so, T. A."

  "You know me too well," argued T. A. Buck rather miserably. "But atleast you know the worst of me as well as the best. You'd be taking norisks."

  Emma McChesney walked to the window. There was a little silence. Thenshe finished it with one clean stroke. "We've been good businesschums, you and I. I hope we always shall be. I can imagine nothing morebeautiful on this earth for a woman than being married to a man shecares for and who cares for her. But, T. A., you're not the man."

  And then there were quick steps in the corridor, a hand at thedoor-knob, a slim, tall figure in the doorway. Emma McChesney seemed towaft across the rooms and into the embrace of the slim, tall figure.

  "Welcome--home!" she cried. "Sketch in the furniture to suit yourself."

  "This is going to be great--great!" announced Jock. "What do you knowabout the Oriental potentate down-stairs! I guess Otis Skinner hasnothing on him when it comes--Why, hello, Mr. Buck!" He was peering intothe next room. "Why don't you folks light up? I thought you were anotheragent person. Met that one down in the hail. Said he'd be right up.What's the matter with him anyway? He smiles like a waxworks. When theelevator took me up he was still smiling from the foyer, and I couldsee his grin after the rest of him was lost to sight. Regular Cheshire.What's this? Droring-room?"

  "'Welcome home!' she cried. 'Sketch in the furniture tosuit yourself'"]

  He rattled on like a pleased boy. He strode over to shake hands withBuck. Emma McChesney, cheeks glowing, eyed him adoringly. Then she gavea little suppressed cry.

  "Jock, what's happened?"

  Jock whirled around like a cat. "Where? When? What?"

  Emma McChesney pointed at him with one shaking finger. "You! You'rethin! You're--you're emaciated. Your shoulders, where are they?Your--your legs--"

  Jock looked down at himself. His glance was pride. "Clothes," he said.

  "Clothes?" faltered his mother.

  "You're losing your punch, Mother? You used to be up on men's rigging.All the boys look like their own shadows these days. English cut. Nopadding. No heels. Incurve at the waist. Watch me walk." He flappedacross the room, chest concave, shoulders rounded, arms hanging limp,feet wide apart, chin thrust forward.

  "Do you mean to tell me that's your present form of locomotion?"demanded his mother.

  "I hope so. Been practising it for weeks. They call it the juvenilejump, and all our best leading men have it. I trailed Douglas Fairbanksfor days before I really got it."

  And the tension between T. A. Buck and Emma McChesney snapped witha jerk, and they both laughed, and laughed again, at Jock's air ofoffended dignity. They laughed until the rancor in the heart of the manand the hurt and pity in the heart of the woman melted into a bond oflasting understanding.

  "Go on--laugh!" said Jock. "Say, Mother, is there a shower in thebathroom, h'm?" And was off to investigate.

  The laughter trailed away into nothingness. "Jock," called his mother,"do you want your bedroom done in plain or stripes?"

  "Plain," came from the regions beyond. "Got a lot of pennants andeverything."

  T. A. Buck picked up his stick from the corner in which it stood.

  "I'll run along," he said. "You two will want to talk things overtogether." He raised his voice to reach the boy in the other room. "I'moff, Jock."

  Jock's protest sounded down the hall. "Don't leave me alone with h
er.She'll blarney me into consenting to blue-and-pink rosebud paper in mybedroom."

  T. A. Buck had the courage to smile even at that. Emma McChesney waswatching him, her clear eyes troubled, anxious.

  At the door Buck turned, came back a step or two. "I--I think, if youdon't mind, I'll play hooky this time and run over to Atlantic City fora couple of days. You'll find things slowing up, now that the holidaysare so near."

  "Fine idea--fine!" agreed Emma McChesney; but her eyes still wore thetroubled look.

  "Good-by," said T. A. Buck abruptly.

  "Good--" and then she stopped. "I've a brand-new idea. Give yousomething to worry about on your vacation."

  "I'm supplied," answered T. A. Buck grimly.

  "Nonsense! A real worry. A business worry. A surprise."

  Jock had joined them, and was towering over his mother, her hand in his.

  T. A. Buck regarded them moodily. "After your pajama and knickerbockerstunt I'm braced for anything."

  "Nothing theatrical this time," she assured him. "Don't expect a showsuch as you got when I touched off the last fuse."

  An eager, expectant look was replacing the gloom that bad clouded hisface. "Spring it."

  Emma McChesney waited a moment; then, "I think the time has come to putin another line--a staple. It's--flannel nightgowns."

  "Flannel nightgowns!" Disgust shivered through Buck's voice. "_Flannelnightgowns!_ They quit wearing those when Broadway was a cow-path."

  "Did, eh?" retorted Emma McChesney. "That's the New-Yorker speaking.Just because the French near-actresses at the Winter Garden wear silklace and sea-foam nighties in their imported boudoir skits, and justbecause they display only those frilly, beribboned handmade affairsin the Fifth Avenue shop-windows, don't you ever think that they're anational vice. Let me tell you," she went on as T. A. Buck's demeanorgrew more bristlingly antagonistic, "there are thousands and thousandsof women up in Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and Michigan, and Oregon, andAlaska, and Nebraska, and Dakota who are thankful to retire every nightprotected by one long, thick, serviceable flannel nightie, and onepractical hot-water bag. Up in those countries retiring isn't a socialrite: it's a feat of hardihood. I'm keen for a line of plain, full,roomy old-fashioned flannel nightgowns of the improved T. A. BuckFeatherloom products variety. They'll be wearing 'em long afterknickerbockers have been cut up for patchwork."

  The moody look was quite absent from T. A. Buck's face now, and thetroubled look from Emma McChesney's eyes.

  "Well," Buck said grudgingly, "if you were to advise making up a line ofthe latest models in deep-sea divers' uniforms, I suppose I'd give in.But flannel nightgowns! In the twentieth century--flannel night--"

  "Think it over," laughed Emma McChesney as he opened the door. "We'llhave it out, tooth and nail, when you get back."

  The door closed upon him. Emma McChesney and her son were left alone intheir new home to be.

  "Turn out the light, son," said Emma McChesney, "and come to the window.There's a view! Worth the money, alone."

  Jock switched off the light. "D' you know, Blonde, I shouldn't wonder ifold T. A.'s sweetish on you," he said as he came over to the window.

  "Old!"

  "He's forty or over, isn't he?"

  "Son, do you realize your charming mother's thirty-nine?"

  "Oh, you! That's different. You look a kid. You're young in all thespots where other women of thirty-nine look old. Around the eyes, andunder the chin, and your hands, and the corners of your mouth."

  In the twilight Emma McChesney turned to stare at her son. "Just wheredid you learn all that, young 'un? At college?"

  And, "Some view, isn't it, Mother?" parried Jock. The two stood there,side by side, looking out across the great city that glittered and swamin the soft haze of the late November afternoon. There are loveliersights than New York seen at night, from a window eyrie with a mauvehaze softening all, as a beautiful but experienced woman is softened byan artfully draped scarf of chiffon. There are cities of roses, citiesof mountains, cities of palm-trees and sparkling lakes; but no sight,be it of mountains, or roses, or lakes, or waving palm-trees, is morelikely to cause that vague something which catches you in the throat.

  It caught those two home-hungry people. And it opened the lips of one ofthem almost against his will.

  "Mother," said Jock haltingly, painfully, "I came mighty near cominghome--for good--this time."

  His mother turned and searched his face in the dim light.

  "What was it, Jock?" she asked, quite without fuss.

  The slim young figure in the jumping juvenile clothes stirred and triedto speak, tried again, formed the two words: "A--girl."

  Emma McChesney waited a second, until the icy, cruel, relentless handthat clutched her very heart should have relaxed ever so little. Then,"Tell me, sonny boy," she said.

  "Why, Mother--that girl--" There was an agony of bitterness and ofdisillusioned youth in his voice.

  Emma McChesney came very close, so that her head, in the pert littleclose-fitting hat, rested on the boy's shoulder. She linked her armthrough his, snug and warm.

  "That girl--" she echoed encouragingly.

  And, "That girl," went on Jock, taking up the thread of his grief, "why,Mother, that--girl--"

  THE END