she built him up immensely in his
own esteem. It was plain he liked having her for a younger sister instead
of for an older one, listening so contentedly to his tales, ministering
to his momentary wants, visibly wondering at and adoring him.

But she broke the spell when she asked him what he meant to do now.

He turned restlessly in his chair. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know
what the deuce there is I can do. Certainly father's idea of my going
back to college and then to medical school afterward, is just plain, rank
nonsense. I'd be a doddering old man before I got through--thirty years
old. I should think that even he would see that. It will have to be
business, I suppose, but if any kind friend comes around and suggests
that I begin at the bottom somewhere--Mr. Whitney, for instance, offering
me a job at ten dollars a week in his bank--I'll kill him. I can't do
that. I won't. At the end of about ten days, I'd run amuck. What I'd
really like," he concluded, "for about a year would be just this." His
gesture indicated the bathrobe, the easy chair and the dainty breakfast
table. "This, all the morning and a ball-game in the afternoon. Lord, it
will be good to see some real baseball again. We'll go to a lot of games
this summer. What are the Sox going to be like this year?"

She discussed the topic expertly with him and with a perfectly genuine
interest, at some length. "Oh, it would be fun," she finished with a
little sigh, "only I shan't be there, you know. At least I don't think I
shall." Then before he could ask her why not, she added in sharper focus,
"I can't go home, Rush."

"Can't!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, nothing to make a fuss about," she said with a frown of irritation.
"I wish you weren't so jumpy this morning,--or perhaps, it's I that am.
All I meant was that home isn't a comfortable place for me and I won't go
back there if I can help it--only I am afraid I can't. That's the trouble
I wanted to talk to you about."

"I thought you liked the new stepmother," he said. "Hasn't she turned out
well?--What am I supposed to call her, anyhow? I wanted to find out about
that before I was right up against it."

"Call her?" Mary was a little taken back. "Why, anything you like, I
should think. I've always called her Paula.--You weren't thinking of
calling her mother, were you?"

"Well," he protested, "how should I know? After all, she is father's
wife. And she must be fairly old.