lied Bobby, his voice more off-hand
than ever. "I just wondered...." Then he remarked, still in that casual
way:

"You haven't told me yet what kept you so late, mother."

Sophy told him, and as she spoke she kept thinking: "He has been
worrying about Amaldi. He has been thinking of me and him together." And
this idea was full of bitter pain to her--the idea that her little son
might have been troubling over the possibility of her marriage with yet
another man!

And, in fact, this thought had harassed Bobby for the last two days. It
had embittered even the joy of his first lesson in rowing a gondola that
afternoon. When Sophy had not returned by six o'clock, as she had said
that she would, dreadful surmises had taken hold of him. Perhaps she was
so late because she had decided suddenly to be married to the Marchese.
Perhaps she would come back with him and say: "Bobby, this is your new
father." The mere idea had filled him with a blackness of resentment and
jealousy. Not until Sophy had replied that Amaldi was already married
had this feeling subsided, though his joy in having his mother again
with him, safe and sound, all his own for the time being, had made him
put it aside for the first few moments. But boyhood is terribly reserved
in some things. The rack could scarcely have brought Bobby to confess
his apprehensions to his mother.

Too excited to sleep, and wishing to get away from the subject of
Amaldi, he began to tell her all about the projected trip to Murano.

"Do you think you'll feel well enough to come, too, mother?" he wound
up.

"I'm afraid I'll be too tired, dear. But well see...."

"Of course, I wouldn't _have_ you come if you felt tired; but it won't
be half so jolly without you."

"We'll see, sweetheart," Sophy repeated. "I'll surely come with you if
I'm able to...."

He rushed off into an eager description of Venetian glass-blowing.

"And they make _every_ sort of thing, mother.... They even make stuff
for dresses.... Oh, mother.... I'd love to buy you a spun-glass gown!
'Twould be like a sort of foggy rainbow--don't you s'pose so? I wonder
if I could get glass slippers to go with it?... Wouldn't you like a
glass gown, mother? You'd look just like a princess in the Arabian
nights! You _must_ have one!..."

He chattered like this for some time. Then just as she thought he was
falling asleep, he roused.

"I say, mother dear.... Don't let Harold Grey know I got in your bed to
wait for yo