e, without having previously mentioned to
Gibson her intention of doing such a thing. It had been obvious that
Gibson was genuinely surprised when he found John with her. He finally
dismissed any apprehension created by this thought by recalling
Consuello's apparent guilelessness.

He fatigued his brain in a vain endeavor to decide upon some means of
overcoming his mother's prejudice. Setting aside the fact that he wanted
them to be friends, to know and find in each other the things he admired
in them, the principle of the whole affair concerned him. He remembered
how different his father had been, how tolerant, how ready to withhold
adverse judgment of a person until both sides of the story had been
heard.

Weary, unhappy, disconcerted, he went to his bedroom and puzzled over
his problem until he fell asleep. Mrs. Gallant had composed herself,
somewhat severely, when he saw her in the morning at breakfast. There
was a trace of haggardness in her face that told him she, too, had spent
a restless night.

"Mother, dear," he said, holding her in his arms before he left for
work, "you know how much I love you." She seemed to yield a little in
response to his tenderness.

"I know, my boy," she said, "and you must realize how much I care for
you."

"Oh, I do, I do," he said, "you have always been a wonderful, wonderful
mother to me. Remember, nothing must come between us."

Her severe aspect, which, he knew, she assumed to compose herself,
disappeared and the love that she bore him as her first and only son
shone in her eyes as she kissed him when he left. It was like the kisses
she had given him when he was a grammar school boy.

Later in the day John met an old friend whom he had almost forgotten. It
was the scrawny youth with the twisted nose and the husky voice who had
been a second in his corner the night he fought Battling Rodriguez to
get money to pay for his father's funeral. He remembered the youth as
Murphy when he met him lounging at the counter of a cigar stand at the
entrance to one of Spring street's most celebrated saloons, which now
was converted into a soft drink and lunch establishment and which was
frequented by men who loitered in and around it for the associations it
held for them and the memory of other days.

Murphy, a brown paper cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth,
hailed him as he passed.

"If it ain't da Gallant kid!" he said, speaking from beneath the visor
of his cloth cap,