As suddenly as she had begun to laugh Mrs. McChesney became very sober.
"Stop it, Jock! Tell me, why weren"t you sleeping?"
"I don"t know," replied Jock, as suddenly solemn. "I--sort of--began to think, and I couldn"t sleep."
"What were you thinking of?"
Jock looked down at the bedclothes and traced a pattern with one forefinger on the sheet. Then he looked up.
"Thinking of you."
"Oh!" said Emma McChesney, like a bashful schoolgirl. "Of--me!"
Jock sat up very straight and clasped his hands about his knees.
"I got to thinking of what I had said about having made good all alone. That"s rot. It isn"t so. I was striped with yellow like a stick of lemon candy. If I"ve got this far, it"s all because of you. I"ve been thinking all along that I was the original electric self-starter, when you"ve really had to get out and crank me every few miles."
Into Emma McChesney"s face there came a wonderful look. It was the sort of look with which a newly-made angel might receive her crown and harp. It was the look with which a war-hero sees the medal pinned on his breast. It was the look of one who has come into her Reward. Therefore:
"What nonsense!" said Emma McChesney. "If you hadn"t had it in you, it wouldn"t have come out."
"It wasn"t in me, in the first place," contested Jock stubbornly.
"You planted it."
From her stand at the foot of the bed she looked at him, her eyes glowing brighter and brighter with that wonderful look.
"Now see here,"--severely--"I want you to go to sleep. I don"t intend to stand here and dispute about your ethical innards at this hour. I"m going to kiss you again."
"Oh, well, if you must," grinned Jock resignedly, and folded her in a bear-hug.
To Emma McChesney it seemed that the next three weeks leaped by, not by days, but in one great bound. And the day came when a little, chattering, animated group cl.u.s.tered about the slim young chap who was fumbling with his tickets, glancing at his watch, signaling a porter for his bags, talking, laughing, trying to hide the pangs of departure under a cloak of gayety and badinage that deceived no one. Least of all did it deceive the two women who stood there. The eyes of the older woman never left his face. The eyes of the younger one seldom were raised to his, but she saw his every expression. Once Emma McChesney"s eyes shifted a little so as to include both the girl and the boy in her gaze. Grace Galt in her blue serge and smart blue hat was worth a separate glance.
Sam Hupp was there, T.A. Buck, Hopper, who was to be with him in Chicago for the first few weeks, three or four of the younger men in the office, frankly envious and heartily congratulatory.
They followed him to his train, all laughter and animation.
"If this train doesn"t go in two minutes," said Jock, "I"ll get scared and chuck the whole business. Funny, but I"m not so keen on going as I was three weeks ago."
His eyes rested on the girl in the blue serge and the smart hat.
Emma McChesney saw that. She saw that his eyes still rested there as he stood on the observation platform when the train pulled out.
The sight did not pain her as she thought it would. There was success in every line of him as he stood there, hat in hand. There was a.s.surance in every breath of him. His clothes, his skin, his clear eyes, his slim body, all were as they should be. He had made a place in the world. He was to be a builder of ideas. She thought of him, and of the girl in blue serge, and of their children-to-be.
Her breast swelled exultingly. Her head came up.
This was her handiwork. She looked at it, and found that it was good.
"Let"s strike for the afternoon and call it a holiday," suggested Buck.
Emma McChesney turned. The train was gone. "T.A., you"ll never grow up."
"Never want to. Come on, let"s play hooky, Emma."
"Can"t. I"ve a dozen letters to get out, and Miss Loeb wants to show me that new knicker-bocker design of hers."
They drove back to the office almost in silence. Emma McChesney made straight for her desk and began dictating letters with an energy that bordered on fury. At five o"clock she was still working. At five-thirty T.A. Buck came in to find her still surrounded by papers, samples, models.
"What is this?" he demanded wrathfully, "an all-night session?"
Emma McChesney looked up from her desk. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright, but there was about her an indefinable air of weariness.
"T.A., I"m afraid to go home. I"ll rattle around in that empty flat like a hickory nut in a barrel."
"We"ll have dinner down-town and go to the theater."
"No use. I"ll have to go home sometime."
"Now, Emma," remonstrated Buck, "you"ll soon get used to it. Think of all the years you got along without him. You were happy, weren"t you?"
"Happy because I had somebody to work for, somebody to plan for, somebody to worry about. When I think of what that flat will be without him--Why, just to wake up and know that you can say good morning to some one who cares! That"s worth living for, isn"t it?"
"Emma," said T.A. evenly, "do you realize that you are virtually hounding me into asking you to marry me?"
"T.A.!" gasped Emma McChesney.
"Well, you said you wanted somebody to worry about, didn"t you?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""Well, you said you wanted somebody to worry about, didn"t you?""]
A little whimsical smile lay lightly on his lips.
"Timothy Buck, I"m over forty years old."
"Emma, in another minute I"m going to grow sentimental, and nothing can stop me."
She looked down at her hands. There fell a little silence. Buck stirred, leaned forward. She looked up from the little watch that ticked away at her wrist.
"The minute"s up, T.A.," said Emma McChesney.
THE END