business, not yours," he said, with an oath, for under
that roof it had always seemed natural for him to swear. "And don't you
be nosing into my business, either. You went there once and tried to get
money on my name, but don't you do it again. I've turned over a new
leaf. I have to. You throw money away like water, on cards, whisky,
beer, and what not. I can't keep that up, and I won't. I have to draw
the line somewhere."

She raised her head a little higher and fixed her eyes, in their puffy
sockets, on him in a sort of groping wonder.

"Why, what has got into you?" she asked, stupidly, and all at once he
seemed older to her, older and more dignified, more business-like, more
like his dead father, to whom she had been flagrantly untrue.

"Common sense, I reckon," he jerked out. "If I've been a fool I don't
always have to stay one. I'm going to need money--for myself, for my
_own_ self, do you understand? I--I don't intend to live on here always,
either. I'll be of age before long. I've thought it all over. I'm
willing to set aside a reasonable amount to help you along, but I'm done
with these big drafts on me."

"John, what ails you?" There was a touch of shrinking fear in the almost
childish appeal. "You have never talked like this before."

"Well, I might as well begin," he sniffed. "You have to be told. I've
seen how other folks live away from here, and I want a change. I'm sick
of it all--you and Jane and the gang you hang out with."

"John Trott," his mother gasped, "you sha'n't talk to me this way. I
won't stand it."

"Well, then, think it all over," he answered. "I know my business. You
can look out for yours. I know when I've had enough, and I _have_ had
enough."

He turned and left her. She heard him in his room, the sordid cubbyhole
he had occupied since he was a child, and somehow now she pictured its
narrow confines and condition as being unsuited to the new and
unaccountable dignity into which he had grown in his short absence. What
could it mean? What?

She got up, slid her silk-dressed feet into a dainty pair of black-satin
slippers, drew her wrapper about her, and went into Jane Holder's
darkened room.

"Are you asleep, Jane?" she inquired, half timidly.

"How could I be, with you yelling out of your window to John at the top
of your lungs?" Jane turned on her side as she answered. "Then it was
wow-wow-wow! in your room after he came up. Oh, I'm sick, sick, sick!
You let that sneaking Kel