it for her
before he spoke.

"I'll go back in as cheerful a spirit as I can, mother," he said.

"There!" she exclaimed, satisfied. "That's a good boy! That's all I
wanted you to say."

"Don't give me any credit," he said, ruefully. "There isn't anything
else for me to do."

"Now, don't begin talkin' THAT way!"

"No, no," he soothed her. "We'll have to begin to make the spirit a
cheerful one. We may--" They were turning into their own driveway as
he spoke, and he glanced at the old house next door. Mary Vertrees was
visible in the twilight, standing upon the front steps, bareheaded, the
door open behind her. She bowed gravely.

"'We may'--what?" asked Mrs. Sheridan, with a slight impatience.

"What is it, mother?"

"You said, 'We may,' and didn't finish what you were sayin'."

"Did I?" said Bibbs, blankly. "Well, what WERE we saying?"

"Of all the queer boys!" she cried. "You always were. Always! You
haven't forgot what you just promised me, have you?"

"No," he answered, as the car stopped. "No, the spirit will be as
cheerful as the flesh will let it, mother. It won't do to behave like--"

His voice was low, and in her movement to descend from the car she
failed to here his final words.

"Behave like who, Bibbs?"

"Nothing."

But she was fretful in her grief. "You said it wouldn't do to behave
like SOMEBODY. Behave like WHO?"

"It was just nonsense," he explained, turning to go in. "An obscure
person I don't think much of lately."

"Behave like WHO?" she repeated, and upon his yielding to her petulant
insistence, she made up her mind that the only thing to do was to tell
Dr. Gurney about it.

"Like Bildad the Shuhite!" was what Bibbs said.

CHAPTER XIV

The outward usualness of things continued after dinner. It was
Sheridan's custom to read the evening paper beside the fire in the
library, while his wife, sitting near by, either sewed (from old habit)
or allowed herself to be repeatedly baffled by one of the simpler forms
of solitaire. To-night she did neither, but sat in her customary chair,
gazing at the fire, while Sheridan let the unfolded paper rest upon his
lap, though now and then he lifted it, as if to read, and let it fall
back upon his knees again. Bibbs came in noiselessly and sat in a
corner, doing nothing; and from a "reception-room" across the hall an
indistinct vocal murmur became just audible at intervals. Once, when
this murmur grew louder, under stress of some irrepressib