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“You know me too well,” argued T. A. Buck rather miserably. “But at least you know the worst of me as well as the best. You’d be taking no risks.”

Emma McChesney walked to the window. There was a little silence. Then she finished it with one clean stroke. “We’ve been good business chums, you and I. I hope we always shall be. I can imagine nothing more beautiful on this earth for a woman than being married to a man she cares 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 the door- knob, a slim, tall figure in the doorway. Emma McChesney seemed to waft 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 know about the Oriental potentate down-stairs! I guess Otis Skinner has nothing on him when it comes–Why, hello, Mr. Buck!” He was peering into the next room. “Why don’t you folks light up? I thought you were another agent 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 the elevator took me up he was still smiling from the foyer, and I could see his grin after the rest of him was lost to sight. Regular Cheshire. What’s this? Droring-room?”

He rattled on like a pleased boy. He strode over to shake hands with Buck. Emma McChesney, cheeks glowing, eyed him adoringly. Then she gave a 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’re thin! 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. No padding. No heels. Incurve at the waist. Watch me walk.” He flapped across 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 juvenile jump, and all our best leading men have it. I trailed Douglas Fairbanks for days before I really got it.”

And the tension between T. A. Buck and Emma McChesney snapped with a jerk, and they both laughed, and laughed again, at Jock’s air of offended dignity. They laughed until the rancor in the heart of the man and the hurt and pity in the heart of the woman melted into a bond of lasting understanding.

“Go on–laugh!” said Jock. “Say, Mother, is there a shower in the bathroom, 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 and everything.”

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 over together.” He raised his voice to reach the boy in the other room. “I’m off, Jock.”

Jock’s protest sounded down the hall. “Don’t leave me alone with her. She’ll blarney me into consenting to blue-and-pink rosebud paper in my bedroom.”

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

At the door Buck turned, came back a step or two. “I–I think, if you don’t mind, I’ll play hooky this time and run over to Atlantic City for a couple of days. You’ll find things slowing up, now that the holidays are so near.”

“Fine idea–fine!” agreed Emma McChesney; but her eyes still wore the troubled look.

“Good-by,” said T. A. Buck abruptly.

“Good–” and then she stopped. “I’ve a brand-new idea. Give you something to worry about on your vacation.”

“I’m supplied,” answered T. A. Buck grimly.

“Nonsense! A real worry. A business worry. A surprise.”