eagerly in the direction of his club,
perhaps, or his hotel, or whatever shelter he sought after business
hours. Something in his attitude--the loneliness of it, the
uncertainty, the indecision--smote Emma McChesney with a great pang.
She came swiftly back.

"I wish you'd come home to dinner with me. I don't know what Annie'll
give us. Probably bread pudding. She does, when she's left to her own
devices. But I--I wish you would." She looked up at him almost shyly.

T. A. Buck took Emma McChesney's arm in a rather unnecessarily firm
grip and propelled her, surprised and protesting, in the direction of
the nearest vacant taxi.

"But, T. A.! This is idiotic! Why take a cab to go home from the
office on a--a week day?"

"In with you! Besides, I never have a chance to take one from the
office on Sunday, do I? Does Annie always cook enough for two?"

Apparently Annie did. Annie was something of a witch, in her way. She
whisked about, wrought certain changes, did things with asparagus and
mayonnaise, lighted the rose-shaded table-candles. No one noticed that
dinner was twenty minutes late.

Together they admired the great mahogany buffet that Emma had
miraculously found space for in the little dining-room.

"It glows like a great, deep ruby, doesn't it?" she said proudly. "You
should see Annie circle around it with the carpet-sweeper. She knows
one bump would be followed by instant death."

Looking back on it, afterward, they remembered that the dinner was a
very silent one. They did not notice their wordlessness at the time.
Once, when the chops came on, Buck said absently,

"Oh, I had those for l----" Then he stopped abruptly.

Emma McChesney smiled.

"Your mother trained you well," she said.

The October night had grown cool. Annie had lighted a wood fire in the
living-room.

"That was what attracted me to this apartment in the first place," Mrs.
McChesney said, as they left the dining-room. "A fireplace--a
practical, real, wood-burning fireplace in a New York apartment! I'd
have signed the lease if the plaster had been falling in chunks and the
bathtub had been zinc."

"That's because fireplaces mean home--in our minds," said Buck.

He sat looking into the heart of the glow. There fell another of those
comfortable silences.

"T. A., I--I want to tell you that I know I've been acting the cat ever
since I got home from South America and found that you had taken
charge. You see, you