vics,
and classes, and politics, and economics, and boards. They rather
terrified Jo. He didn't understand much that they talked about, and he
felt humbly inferior, and yet a little resentful, as if something had
passed him by. He escorted them home, dutifully, though they told him
not to bother, and they evidently meant it. They seemed capable not
only of going home quite unattended but of delivering a pointed lecture
to any highwayman or brawler who might molest them.

The following Thursday Eva would say, "How did you like her, Jo?"

"Like who?" Joe would spar feebly.

"Miss Matthews."

"Who's she?"

"Now, don't be funny, Jo. You know very well I mean the girl who was
here for dinner. The one who talked so well on the emigration
question."

"Oh, her! Why, I liked her all right. Seems to be a smart woman."

"Smart! She's a perfectly splendid girl."

"Sure," Jo would agree cheerfully.

"But didn't you like her?"

"I can't say I did, Eve. And I can't say I didn't. She made me think
a lot of a teacher I had in the fifth reader. Name of Himes. As I
recall her, she must have been a fine woman. But I never thought of
Himes as a woman at all. She was just Teacher."

"You make me tired," snapped Eva impatiently. "A man of your age. You
don't expect to marry a girl, do you? A child!"

"I don't expect to marry anybody," Jo had answered.

And that was the truth, lonely though he often was.

The following spring Eva moved to Winnetka. Anyone who got the meaning
of the Loop knows the significance of a move to a North Shore suburb,
and a house. Eva's daughter, Ethel, was growing up, and her mother had
an eye on society.

That did away with Jo's Thursday dinners. Then Stell's husband bought
a car. They went out into the country every Sunday. Stell said it was
getting so that maids objected to Sunday dinners, anyway. Besides,
they were unhealthful, old-fashioned things. They always meant to ask
Jo to come along, but by the time their friends were placed, and the
lunch, and the boxes, and sweaters, and George's camera, and
everything, there seemed to be no room for a man of Jo's bulk. So that
eliminated the Sunday dinners.

"Just drop in any time during the week," Stell said, "for dinner.
Except Wednesday--that's our bridge night--and Saturday. And, of
course, Thursday. Cook is out that night. Don't wait for me to phone."

And so Jo drifted into that sad-eyed, dyspeptic family made up of t