mily! We wouldn't have him stay home, would we? We wouldn't want
him to do anything different, would we? Not our boy. I'm glad he
volunteered. I'm proud of him. So are you, glad."

Little by little he quieted her. He took her to the car that was
waiting, a worried chauffeur in charge. They said good-by, awkwardly.
Emily's face was a red, swollen mass.

So it was that when Jo entered his own hallway half an hour later he
blinked, dazedly, and when the light from the window fell on him you saw
that his eyes were red.

Eva was not one to beat about the bush. She sat forward in her chair,
clutching her bag rather nervously.

"Now, look here, Jo. Stell and I are here for a reason. We're here to
tell you that this thing's got to stop."

"Thing? Stop?"

"You know very well what I mean. You saw me at the milliner's that day.
And night before last, Ethel. We're all disgusted. If you must go about
with people like that, please have some sense of decency."

Something gathering in Jo's face should have warned her. But he was
slumped down in his chair in such a huddle, and he looked so old and fat
that she did not heed it. She went on. "You've got us to consider. Your
sisters. And your nieces. Not to speak of your own--"

But he got to his feet then, shaking, and at what she saw in his face
even Eva faltered and stopped. It wasn't at all the face of a fat,
middle-aged sport. It was a face Jovian, terrible.

"You!" he began, low-voiced, ominous. "You!" He raised a great fist
high. "You two murderers! You didn't consider me, twenty years ago. You
come to me with talk like that. Where's my boy! You killed him, you two,
twenty years ago. And now he belongs to somebody else. Where's my son
that should have gone marching by to-day?" He flung his arms out in a
great gesture of longing. The red veins stood out on his forehead.
"Where's my son! Answer me that, you two selfish, miserable women.
Where's my son!" Then as they huddled together, frightened, wild-eyed.
"Out of my house! Out of my house! Before I hurt you!"

They fled, terrified. The door banged behind them.

Jo stood, shaking, in the center of the room. Then he reached for a
chair, gropingly, and sat down. He passed one moist, flabby hand over
his forehead and it came away wet. The telephone rang. He sat still, it
sounded far away and unimportant, like something forgotten. I think he
did not even hear it with his conscious ear. But it rang and rang
insistently. Jo lik